


Entanglement

by pterawaters



Series: Mr. Sandman [12]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: All the Byers Have Powers, Established Relationship, Family Drama, Jonathan Byers Has Powers, Multi, Mystery, Polyamory, Road Trips, Science Fiction, Will Byers Has Powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:47:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 85,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22207384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pterawaters/pseuds/pterawaters
Summary: After her first year at Northwestern, Nancy figures that being hired to investigate a series of mysterious disappearances in the mountains outside Salem, Oregon beats any summer job she could find back in Hawkins. Being able to bring Jonathan and Steve with her just sweetens the deal. The road trip they take out west feels like the beginning of a new chapter in their relationship – one where they get to live together all the time from then on out. Except the more Nancy and the boys look into these disappearances, the more they appear to be connected to everything they thought they left behind.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Jonathan Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper, Jonathan Byers & Will Byers, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Series: Mr. Sandman [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1527764
Comments: 246
Kudos: 125





	1. The Offer

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back to another installment of the craziness that is this series! 
> 
> If you're new here, you can probably read this installment without reading all the previous ones, but there are definitely going to be references to things you'll have missed out on.
> 
> If you're not new here, welcome back! I hope you enjoy this installment of the series!

  


**_May 1987_ **

Nancy put the last of her clothes in her suitcase before looking through all the dresser drawers to make sure they were empty. The only things she had left to pack from her dorm room were the sheets and blankets on her bed. Hopper wasn’t coming with the moving truck for another hour, so Nancy thought maybe she could take a little nap. She’d been burning the candle at both ends in the run up to finals week, and she could really feel it. 

Before she could even lay down, the phone rang. Sighing, Nancy answered it. “Hello?”

“Nancy, it’s you-know-who,” said Murray’s voice. Nancy rolled her eyes. He was being extra paranoid today, wasn’t he?

“What do you want?” Nancy asked him. 

“Meet me in the 600s section of the Humanities library in ten minutes.”

Nancy sighed. “Fine. But I have to be back here at eleven. The boys are helping me move out.”

“Fine.” Murray hung up.

When Nancy arrived at the library and found Murray, she crossed her arms and asked him, “So, what’s the big deal?”

He smiled widely, and Nancy knew she was about to be asked for a favor. “What are your plans for the summer, Miss Wheeler?” he asked.

“Why?” she asked, knowing full well that her plans were loose at best.

“Because,” he said, handing her a folder. “I have an opportunity for you.”

Nancy opened the folder, and right on top was a newspaper clipping about the disappearance of a young man from Salem, Oregon. There was no date on the clipping, so Nancy asked Murray, “When did this happen?”

“It’s _been_ happening,” Murray said, flipping to the next clipping, and then the next one. “Every two months for the past three years. _At least_. The Marion County sheriff has reached out to me for help. He’s…” Murray chuckled. “He’s desperate.”

“How desperate are we talking?” Nancy asked, paging through the rest of the clippings. The later ones looked like they were printed out from microfiche. 

“The sum offered is,” Murray laughed, “extraordinary. Enough to pay you, your _sensitive_ boyfriend, and the one with the muscles, _all_ a nice stipend, with enough left over to make my time consulting worthwhile.”

“Why don’t you just take it yourself, if it’s so much?” Nancy asked him, closing the folder and tucking it under her arm.

“See, the thing about _that_ is that I’m finally starting to get somewhere with Excugen. And the conspiracy runs deep, but it runs toward the East Coast. I can’t follow up on both of these cases. Problem is, only the one in Oregon is paying.”

“Why don’t you let me take the Execugen case? You’d get to keep all the Oregon money.”

“And let you have all the glory when we can finally bring this shit to light?” Murray gasped in false shock. “I don’t think so. Besides, there’s a lot of doors on the East Coast that I can get through, which are just going to be brick walls for you. The Oregon case is right up your alley!”

“Missing…” She opened the folder and looked at the first clipping, noting the missing boy’s age. “...teenagers and young adults. Yeah, kinda my thing.” She shook her head and chuckled a little. “I’ll need to ask the boys if they’re on board.”

Murray smiled. “I have a feeling you’ll convince them.”

Nancy had a pretty good feeling about her chances of success, too. “You still using that message service?”

“Indeed.”

“I’ll leave a message tonight.” Going over everything in her head, she thought to ask, “How soon would they want us out there? And what sort of upfront expense account are we talking?”

“ _Yesterday_ ,” he told her. “And I can front you three grand.”

Nancy whistled. “I’m assuming that would have to last us the summer?”

Murray nodded. 

“What’s the take home? If we finish the job?”

“Two grand,” Murray told her. 

“Altogether?” Nancy asked, thinking that sounded a little low for a whole summer’s work for three of them.

Murray shook his head. “ _Each._ ”

“Each?” Nancy asked. Two thousand would put a big dent in the cost of her room and board during the school year. And it would be most of Steve’s tuition, all of Jonathan’s post-scholarship tuition. Neither of them would have to work so many hours next school year. They could do a lot with that money.

Nancy grinned and stuck her hand out, “I’m sure we can arrange something.”

Smiling like the cat who got the cream, Murray took Nancy’s hand and shook it. “Then, _I’m_ sure this is going to be a fruitful partnership, Miss Wheeler.”

“I’ll call you soon.”

Nancy kept her pace steady as she walked away from Murray toward the library exit, the folder still in her hands. She only let her excitement show when she was out of the building and two buildings down. She grinned. She maybe squealed a little bit with excitement. And she rushed back to the dorm, eager to tell the boys about this opportunity.

~*~

“Well?” Nancy asked, sitting in the chair, facing Steve and Jonathan who sat on her empty bed. Everything was packed and they were just waiting for Hopper to fight through the Chicago traffic with the moving truck. “What do you think?”

Jonathan looked over at Steve, before turning back to Nancy. “I was … kinda looking forward to spending some time at home this summer. You know? Hanging out with the family?”

“But it’s a _lot_ of money,” Steve pointed out. “More than you’d make at Save-a-Lot. And the three of us would get to hang out all summer.”

“Or at least until we crack the case,” Nancy insisted. She slid to the floor and kneeled between Jonathan’s legs, leaning her head against his knee and looking up at him with a sly grin. “What? Are you afraid you’re gonna get sick of us?”

“C’mon, Nance,” Jonathan said, his cheeks getting pink. “This isn’t fair!”

Steve laughed softly, nudging Nancy’s arm with his knee. “What, did you expect Nancy _not_ to play dirty? Exactly how long have we been together?”

“If it’s extra encouragement you need,” Nancy told Jonathan, looking up at him with big pleading eyes, “I think we could probably work something out.”

Jonathan squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head back for a second, before letting out a loud breath and throwing up his hands. “Fine! Fine. You win. Just please, stop. Hop is gonna be here any minute!”

Nancy grinned. She hopped up onto her feet and pulled Jonathan into a series of kisses. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

The room telephone rang, so Nancy turned and answered it. “Hello?” After a short pause, she said, “Great! I’ll be right down!”

She gave Jonathan another kiss, then gave one to Steve, before bouncing out of the room and down the hallway. 

Jonathan turned to Steve and complained, “I’m so weak. She makes me weak.”

Steve laughed and kissed him. “You and me both, babe.” Then he nodded to the tent in Jonathan’s pants. “She makes you hard, too.”

“Shit,” Jonathan said, smacking Steve’s arm and then rearranging himself so his hard on wasn’t so obvious. 

“Need any help with that?” Steve asked in a low voice, with a playful grin. 

“No!” Jonathan told him, sticking a finger in Steve’s face. “Don’t you start, too!”

He stood up off the bed, looking out the window and shaking out his arms, like that was going to help. 

Steve laughed again, taking a moment to just watch Jonathan and think about how much he loved him.

~*~

"Are you sure you want to do this yourself?" Steve asked as he pulled up to the Wheelers' house. It was past midnight, but this was how it had to be if Nancy was going to talk to her parents about her summer plans in person.

Turning to Steve, Nancy asked, "What? You're going to come with me? They think I'm only dating Jonathan."

"Would it be so bad if they knew the truth?" Steve asked. "My mom knows, and she's cool with it."

"Yeah, but she's not paying your tuition, like my parents are paying mine," Nancy insisted. "And my dad's a Reagan supporter. He'd freak out and stop paying for school."

Steve sighed. "True." He looked up at the house. "We could go sleep at my mom's house. Just tonight. So we can be together."

God, Nancy hated to break his heart like this. She leaned over and kissed him. "It'll be for the best, baby. Just think long-term. They've already agreed to let me live with you guys next year. And we're spending _all summer_ together. One night apart isn't going to kill us."

"Oh, don't say shit like that in this town," Steve grumbled, crossing himself awkwardly.

Nancy smiled. His superstitions about Hawkins were entirely relatable, and also cute. "Besides, Jonathan isn't here either."

"Yeah, 'cause he's visiting the family for an extra day." Steve pouted. 

"We'll leave as soon as we can tomorrow afternoon so we can see them," she assured Steve. "But only if you let me go get some sleep."

"Okay," Steve said, pulling Nancy into another kiss. "Call me when you wake up in the morning, okay? I'll be right over."

Nancy nodded. "Of course. And say hello to your mother for me."

"Okay." Steve tucked a curl of Nancy's hair behind her ear. "Love you, babe."

"Love you too," she told him with a smile.

Then Nancy made herself get out of the car, bringing her backpack and her purse with her. She gave Steve one last wave, and then let herself into the house.

Nancy closed and locked the door behind her. She was about to go up the stairs, but she noticed the family room light was on. Peeking into the room, Nancy saw her mother sitting on the couch. She was reading a magazine in the soft lamp light.

"Hey," Nancy said gently as she went into the room, giving her mother a hug. "You didn't have to wait up for me."

"No, but I wanted to," Karen said, cupping Nancy's face in her hands and smiling, just for a moment. "Isn't Jonathan staying too?"

"Oh," Nancy said, gesturing back toward the door. "Jonathan is spending the next couple days in Springfield. He promised he'd take his little sister mini golfing." Nancy smiled a little sadly at missing out on the family outing. "Steve drove me here."

Karen gave Nancy a knowing look. "Steve didn't want to spend the night?"

Nancy gave a careful little laugh. "No, he did. I sent him to his mom's house. Didn't want to make any more waves than I was already going to be making."

"Oh, I don't think you need to tell anybody," Karen said, patting Nancy's hand. "Not when it's just going to upset your father."

"No, not about that," Nancy insisted, her cheeks heating up with embarrassment when she realized that her mother totally _knew_. "I meant about the summer job I got."

"Oh?" Karen asked. "What is it?"

Nancy explained a little bit about the job. When she was done she added, "It's a really good opportunity, but it's in Oregon."

"That's … so far away, Nancy," Karen said. "I don't know if I like the idea of you going there, just with this journalist mentor of yours. I mean, how well do you know him?"

"No, mom," Nancy insisted. "I'm going to Oregon in Murray's place. And he's paying for Jonathan and Steve to work with me. There's nothing to worry about."

"Your mentor agreed to hire your boyfriends, too?" Karen scoffed. "How are you behaving yourself in Chicago? Does everyone there know about this?"

"No," Nancy said, frowning at her mother's implications. "Murray's just really good at reading people. That's how he figured it out. And besides, they both have skills to contribute. Jonathan is considering pursuing photojournalism. Remember the internship two summers ago? He really enjoyed it." Nancy smiled, thinking everything after Tom had been flayed shouldn't count. "Plus, he's really good at reading people's faces. He's practically a human lie detector." And he's definitely _not_ psychic or anything…

Karen nodded. "And Steve? What are his contributions to this little endeavor of yours?"

"He's really good at charming people," Nancy told her mother. "Plus, he tends to notice things that Jonathan and I don't. We make a good team, Mom."

With a sigh, Karen said, "I suppose I could see that." She pressed her lips together for a moment, then asked, "When does this job start?"

"As soon as possible," Nancy admitted, watching Karen's face fall. "I'm sorry. I know I haven't been here much, but this is a big opportunity for us, Mom. For me, especially. This sort of project could get me an in at any of dozens of news rooms around the country."

"Will you finish in time to make it back to school in the fall?"

Nancy assured her mother, "I don't think it will take that long. But in any case, school comes first. If we don't finish this summer, we won't make as much money, but we'll give Murray what we've found and go back to school."

Karen nodded again. "Well, I suppose you are an adult, and this is your decision. If this is what you want to do–"

"It is," Nancy insisted.

"Then I will wish you luck," Karen said with a final sort of nod. She leaned forward and gave Nancy another hug. "Have Steve come over for breakfast in the morning. I'd like to speak to him, too."

"Okay," Nancy replied. "I'll go try to get some sleep."

"Goodnight, darling."

Nancy wished her mother a good night too, then headed up the stairs. She stopped in the bathroom to freshen up and brush her teeth, then went to her old room. When she opened the door, the air inside the room smelled stale. She wondered if anyone had been inside the room at all since she'd stayed here during spring break.

It was a warm night, so Nancy went over to the window and opened it. Sticking her head out and breathing in the fresh air, she noticed that Steve's car was parked just down the street. Nancy rolled her eyes and put her shoes back on. She made it out the front door and halfway up the driveway before meeting Steve on his way toward the house. 

"I'm pathetic," he said, letting Nancy take his hands. "I couldn't leave."

"Will your mom worry?"

Steve shook his head. "I told her we might not make it all the way back to Hawkins tonight. I'll see her in the morning."

"Come on," Nancy said, pulling him toward the house.

"Should I go up through the window?"

Nancy shook her head. "Just come in the front door. Everyone's already asleep."

"Cool."

Nancy led Steve back into the house and up to her room. The bed was a little small for the two of them, but not overly so. It was a comfortable sort of squeeze.

"I don't often get you all to myself anymore," Nancy whispered, kissing Steve's jaw.

"Wanna make out for old time's sake?" he asked, pulling Nancy close and hitching her thigh up over his hip.

"No," she said, brushing her fingers back through his hair. "But I bet a quickie would help us sleep without Jonathan here."

Steve gave a snort of a laugh and kissed her. "You know, I bet you're right."

~*~

"So, what do you think?" Jonathan asked his parents when he finished explaining the summer situation.

"Murray's putting you up to this?" Hop asked, his hands wrapped around a can of Coke that Jonathan could tell he wished was a beer instead. Jonathan had noticed the way Hopper and Joyce had been very diligent about keeping alcohol out of the house, just for Jonathan's sake. Though he supposed with what he went through, they were probably wary of having it around Will, too.

"More like, I think he wants us to be the boots on the ground for him," Jonathan explained. "When we solve it, we're splitting the reward money the sheriff offered him."

Joyce reached across the table and put her hand on Jonathan's, admitting, "I'm going to miss having you guys around, but if this is what you want to do…"

Jonathan thought about that for a moment. Sure, Nancy had pretty much strong-armed him into coming with her, but the more he thought about it, the more he was warming up to the idea. "It's a really great opportunity," Jonathan told them, "and I really like working with Nancy on this kind of stuff."

"And Steve's going with you guys?" Hop asked.

Jonathan nodded.

With a bit of a frown, Hop nodded back. "You need any help, you'll call me, understand?"

"Like, help figuring out the case?" Jonathan asked. "I don't know. Nancy's so proud about this kind of stuff. I'm not sure she'd take the help."

"No, I meant if things go sideways. You call, or contact your brother or sister." Hopper gave Jonathan an unyielding look. "Promise me."

"I promise," Jonathan insisted, realizing that Hop was even more worried about him than his mother was. "I'll make sure to check in regularly, even if all I do is tell El we're fine."

Joyce said, "Are you sure you'll be able to reach her? Oregon is so much further away than Chicago."

"We'll test it out when we get there," Jonathan assured her. "Okay?"

"Okay," Joyce said, her emotions mixed all over the place: pride, worry, love.

Jonathan smiled at her. "Mom, you're leaking."

"Sorry," she said, but she didn't seem very apologetic with that smile on her face. After closing her eyes for a moment and taking a deep breath, Joyce's shield went up, and Jonathan could only read what she wanted him to know.

"Wish I could do that," Hopper said, shaking his head. "It's hard enough parenting teenagers, without them knowing _exactly_ how to push your buttons."

Jonathan laughed. "What have the kids been getting up to?"

"They fixed your car," Joyce told him, referring to the way he'd left his car behind when he moved to Chicago the previous fall. He'd known he and Steve wouldn't need two cars in the city, and that his siblings had been coming up on sixteen. "A couple weeks ago, they took their friends on a joy ride in the middle of the night."

"What, really?" Jonathan asked. He never would have expected Will and El to use his car to break curfew. Not unless the world was on the line. "Where did they go?"

Joyce rolled her eyes, which reassured Jonathan that there hadn't been another near-apocalypse while he'd been studying for finals. "Their friends insisted that one of the cemeteries in town was haunted. They were," Joyce used her fingers to make air quotes, "'checking it out.'"

"They're grounded," Hop added. "Until the end of the school year."

Jonathan laughed, wondering how effective it really was to ground two telepathic teenagers. Then he stood up from the kitchen table. "Well, it's been a long day. I'm gonna try to get some sleep. Big day tomorrow with the Byers family mini golf championship on the line."

Jonathan started in the direction of the back hallway, until his mom called to him, "Oh, sweetie! Remember we moved your room downstairs?"

"Right," Jonathan said, changing his trajectory. The room he and Steve had shared the year before now belonged to the youngest member of the family, Jenny.

Jonathan turned on the light at the top of the stairs and went down them. At the bottom of the stairs, to the left was the door to the "tub room" as Jonathan's family called it. It held a sensory deprivation tub that Hop built for El, but now pretty much everyone else in the family used it too. 

To the right of the stairs was an open space with a couch and a TV, and beyond that, a wall with a single door in it. The room hadn't quite been done the last time Jonathan had come home for a visit, so opening the door and turning on the light was a new experience. 

The room beyond the door wasn't huge, but it looked like it was a little bit bigger than his room upstairs had been. It held Jonathan's old bed, already made up with his old sheets and blankets. There was a nightstand next to the bed, with a small lamp on it. There was also a bright light fixture in the ceiling, making the room look cheery despite it being in the basement.

Jonathan heard Hop coming down the steps and turned to greet him.

"Let me show you something," Hop said, passing Jonathan to walk into the room. He opened the sliding door on the other side of the room, revealing an empty closet. Hop turned to the side and pulled something down from the ceiling. "This is an escape route," he told Jonathan, waving him closer. Jonathan could see that Hop had pulled down a sort of ladder or steep staircase. "It goes up to a storm cellar door on the side of the house. It's locked from the inside. Dead bolt, just like the front door," he said, pointing up the stairs. "Needed a second exit to bring the room up to code."

"Probably not a bad idea anyway, given our lives," Jonathan said; he vividly remembered being trapped between two of his kidnappers at his apartment in Chicago. Of course, that had happened before Jonathan had learned more effective means of self-defense from his siblings. Shaking that thought away, Jonathan told Hopper, "I'm impressed that you managed to build all this."

"Yeah, well," Hopper said, putting the escape stairs back up against the closet ceiling. "It's a little easier to build stuff with a seven year old following you around than it is doing PI work."

"You've brought Jenny along on investigations?" Jonathan asked with a laugh, imagining how that must have looked. 

"Just once or twice, when Mrs. Johnson across the street was busy," Hop insisted. He smiled a little. "Have to say, she was actually a big help. Read some memories without me even asking."

"Yeah, well, no asking her for real until she's old enough to get paid for her work, right?" Jonathan asked with a pointed look.

"Yeah, yeah," Hop said, walking toward the door. "Don't worry. El is very much into civil rights at the moment. No exploitation of abilities in our house."

Jonathan laughed. "Okay. See you in the morning, Hop. Thanks again for all the help moving."

"You're welcome, Jonathan," Hop said, squeezing Jonathan's shoulder as he passed.

When Jonathan settled down into bed, he found he had to leave the light on in the game room and keep the door cracked. Otherwise it was just too dark and lonely. 

Before he fell asleep, Jonathan let himself drift Inbetween. It was a little difficult to reach Hawkins without the bath, but Steve and Nancy shone like beacons to him. They were together, in bed. Having sex. Jonathan wondered if they would mind him watching. He decided since he couldn't ask now, he'd better err on the side of caution and leave them be.

He rose up out of the Inbetween, and let himself fall asleep.


	2. Leaving Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy and Jonathan tell their families about their plans for the summer, while Steve has a frank discussion with Karen Wheeler.

Steve woke up with the sun in his eyes. God, he'd forgotten how bright it got in the morning here at Nancy's old place. He and Jonathan had put big, dark curtains on their bedroom window in the apartment. Despite both of them still being a little wary of the dark, they found it was easier to get enough sleep at all if they could sleep in a little later without the sun waking them up. And the privacy that came with keeping dark curtains didn't hurt either.

It was a little weird to think that they'd be moving to a different apartment in the fall, but Nancy was going to live with them, so they needed a place closer to her school.

Stretching as he woke up, Steve realized that Nancy was still asleep on his back. And Steve was cuddling one of Nancy's pillows, probably because Jonathan wasn't there. Steve got the urge to call Jonathan and check in on him, but the house in Springfield was an hour behind. If Steve called before seven when it wasn't an emergency, Hop would definitely murder him. Well, Hop would _want_ to, but no one else in the family would let him.

Maybe Steve should just go back to sleep. Like, sure they had to see their families and then drive all the way to Springfield today, but ten more minutes couldn't hurt, right?

The next time Steve opened his eyes, there was a blonde little girl staring at him. "Holly?" he asked, pulling the blankets closer around himself to make sure he was covered. "What are you doing in here?" Hadn't Nancy locked the door last night?

"Mom says breakfast is ready," she said, stepping closer and reaching over Steve to tap on Nancy's face. "Nancy! Breakfast is ready!"

"Jesus, okay," Nancy mumbled, pushing her sister away. "We'll be down in a minute."

Holly ran off and Nancy called after her, "Close the door!"

Mike leaned into the room, said, "Hey, Steve," and then closed the door for them.

Steve turned over and face Nancy. "You wanna lock the door before I end up flashing your whole family?"

Nancy snorted a little laugh and nodded. She was naked when she got out of bed, and Steve just let himself watch her as she went and locked the door before gathering her hair into a loose bun at the top of her head. 

"What?" she asked when she noticed him watching.

Smiling, Steve reached for Nancy and said, "You're beautiful, Nancy Wheeler."

"And you're naked, Steve Harrington," she replied, stooping down to pick up Steve's shirt from the floor. She dropped it on his face. "You heard the little gremlin. Breakfast is ready, and I know for a fact," she rummaged around in her backpack, pulling out some clothes, "that my mom expects you to be there."

"Why?" Steve asked, pulling the shirt on over his head. "She want to ask me my intentions or something?"

Nancy stepped into a pair of panties and pulled on a bra as she asked with a mischievous smile, "What _are_ your intentions?"

Putting his boxers on, Steve looked at Nancy, wondering if she wanted the real answer, or if she was just playing. Well, Steve wasn't playing when he caught her hand and told her, "I'd marry you if you let me, Nance."

Nancy cast her eyes down for a second before looking up at him again. "Yeah, I know."

"But, you know, marriage is patriarchal bullshit and it wouldn't be even or fair," Steve said for her, drawing Nancy into a hug. "I'd marry both of you if I could. I'm serious."

"I know you are," she told him, putting her hands on his face and smiling at him. "We'll figure it out eventually. Okay?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah, I know."

Nancy pulled him into a kiss. "Let's get down to breakfast."

"You sure your dad's not gonna kill me for spending the night?" Steve asked as he put on his pants. 

Putting on a pair of shorts and a flowery blouse that made Steve want to rub his hand across her back, Nancy said, "Let's just hope he doesn't notice. He might not if no one else says anything."

"If you say so," Steve said, thinking it was probably a good idea not to touch Nancy at all once they were out of her room, despite how much he wanted to.

In the kitchen, Karen greeted Steve with a soft, "Hello, Steven," and a polite hug. Then she handed him a plate with two eggs and a pancake, and a glass of juice. "Thanks for coming over for breakfast. You can sit next to Mike."

"Sure," Steve said, not wanting to rock the boat. The rest of Nancy's family was already sitting, so he tried not to be too awkward in joining them. Mr. Wheeler was mostly behind his newspaper and Holly was staring at him again. Mike and Nancy were the only ones acting as Steve expected. Steve nodded to Mike, saying, "Hey. El said you finally got your license."

"Yeah," Mike said with a little laugh. 

"He had to take the road test a second time," Karen said as she sat down across from Steve.

Mike gave him mom a dirty look before telling Steve, "They dinged me on parallel parking the first time." He shook his head. "Who even uses parallel parking anymore?"

"Uh," Steve said, sharing a look with Nancy as he swallowed his bite of eggs. "I parallel park my car every day in Chicago."

"Yeah, it's not that hard, Mike," Nancy said with her trouble-making grin.

Mike flipped Nancy off while pretending to scratch his eyebrow. Steve smiled. He'd missed this kind of stuff growing up as an only child. He would have missed out entirely if the Byers hadn't unofficially adopted him into their family. Now he knew what it was like having little brothers and sisters – how annoying they could be, but also how much you could love them and be ready to do absolutely anything for them.

"Oh, hello, Steven," Mr. Wheeler said as he set down one section of the paper and picked up another. "Karen said you were going to come over this morning. Thanks for giving Nancy a ride last night."

Steve shouldn't have been chewing while Mr. Wheeler said that, because the first picture that came to his mind wasn't the interstate miles they'd covered yesterday. It was Nancy riding his cock in her dark bedroom until they were both shivering and coming. Steve choked on his bite of pancake and had to cough several times before he could breathe right.

"Yeah," Nancy said, giving Steve an admonishing look. "We made good time. Unfortunately packing up Steve and Jonathan's apartment took longer than we thought it would. We got in really late."

"What are you doing with all your stuff over the summer, Steve?" Karen asked. "Nancy said you guys won't be moving back to Chicago until just before the fall quarter."

"Oh. Mom– I mean," Steve took a sip of juice to further clear his throat. " _Jonathan's_ mom is going to store our extra stuff in her garage over the summer. Jonathan and his family were going to unload the truck today."

"Are you staying in Hawkins over the summer, Steven?" Mr. Wheeler asked, his eyes on his paper as he sipped his coffee. 

"No," Steve said, wondering if he could ask for a cup of coffee without pushing his luck. He hadn't exactly meant to be caught naked in Nancy's bed. "I'm just meeting my mom for a quick lunch. Then it's back to Springfield." He looked to Nancy, not sure how much he should say about what was supposed to happen after Springfield.

Nancy cleared her throat and spoke up. "Dad. Steve, Jonathan, and I have a summer internship on the West Coast. We're driving out starting tomorrow."

"West Coast, huh?" Mr. Wheeler said, still seeming just as uninterested as before. "Well, that sounds nice."

"Yeah, I hope it will be," Nancy said, shrugging at Steve a little. Maybe she'd been stressing out over nothing.

Steve wondered if the implications of the conversation were going to hit Mr. Wheeler later in the day. Steve just hoped he and Nancy were going to be long-gone by the time that happened.

During the rest of breakfast, Steve chatted with Karen and Mike about his second semester of college. Then he helped Karen do the dishes while Ted went to work and Nancy went to take a shower. They were a few dishes in when Karen said, "Steve, I want to talk to you about this internship."

Steve's stomach clenched nervously. "What about it?"

Clearing her throat, Karen scrubbed at a plate as she spoke, "Nancy can get very _focused_ on her goals."

"Yeah, I know," Steve insisted, taking the plate when Karen gave it to him and drying it. 

"I wasn't too worried about her going to college, because at least college has _some_ structure, you know?"

"Yeah."

"But this _internship_ or whatever you're calling it has me worried. I need you to promise me something." She stopped scrubbing and turned to face Steve.

Concerned he wasn't going to be able to keep whatever promise Karen wanted from him, Steve asked, "What?"

Keeping her eyes locked with Steve's, Karen said, "Just promise me you'll take care of her. Make sure she eats and sleeps? That she doesn't do anything too stupid?"

Steve laughed a little and nodded. "Yeah, I can do that." He looked over his shoulder to make sure Nancy wasn't standing behind him, then lowered his voice before adding, "I _already_ take care of both of them. I swear, neither one of them would remember to eat without me telling them to. Yeah, I'm not about to stop taking care of them because we'll be traveling."

Karen nodded, sighing as she looked away. "Okay, good. That makes me feel a little better." She rinsed a plate and handed it to Steve. "How long?" she asked.

Steve looked at her with confusion as he dried the plate. "How long have I been taking care of them?"

"How long has it been the three of you?" Karen asked, scrubbing a glass and not looking over at him.

"For…" Steve said, trying to think. It had been so long. "Forever. I don't know. Since just before Christmas, Nancy's sophomore year."

"That long?" Karen asked, shaking her head. "I thought she was being silly and reckless, that she couldn't decide. That she was going to end up hurting one of you." Karen handed over the glass with a sad smile. "I should have trusted her more."

"She's really trustworthy," Steve insisted, setting down the glass and taking the next one Karen handed him. "And, like, _fierce_. Relentless, Jonathan says. You did a good job with her."

Karen smiled. "Thank you, Steven."

"You're welcome."

~*~ 

“No, you can’t,” Jonathan insisted as his mother walked around the blue 1984 Chevy Cavalier in the sales lot. “Mom, you can’t buy me a car.”

“I’m not buying _you_ a car,” Joyce insisted. “I’m trading in your old, unreliable junker and passing my station wagon down to the kids. Then, I’m letting you and Steve _borrow_ my car while you guys are away for the summer.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Jonathan insisted. “Steve’s car is fine.”

“It’s eleven years old, Jonathan. I don’t want it breaking down while you’re going over the mountains. I'd rather keep it with me for city driving,” she insisted. Patting Jonathan’s cheek, she told him, “You’re so grown up and responsible now. Please let me do this one little thing to take care of you?”

She was shielding pretty well, so Jonathan couldn’t really read her emotions. The most he could feel was perhaps love and concern, which matched the expression on her face. 

He sighed. “Okay, fine. Only if you’re sure you can afford it.”

“I’m sure,” Joyce assured him. “Besides the money I’m making at work, there’s no mortgage on the house to worry about and Jim’s been steadily building a bigger client base.” She lowered her voice, “Not to mention the fact that Will and El are both making their own college money now.”

“Still doing jobs for Owens?”

Joyce nodded. “They say they can handle it.”

“Can they actually, though?” Jonathan asked her. He was still pissed at Owens for the shit that had gone down just before Christmas. It’s funny how being used as live bait tended to ruin a person for him.

Before Joyce could answer him, the salesman approached about the car. Jonathan watched his mom haggle the guy down a grand below the sticker price and still threaten to walk off the lot if he didn’t drop the price a little more. 

Jonathan realized as they drove the car home, that he shouldn’t have been surprised at her negotiation skills. This was the same woman who got Will back from the upside down with just faith and her scolding tone on her side. 

And _then_ he realized how he’d seen Nancy do similar things, only instead of scolding people into doing what she wanted, Nancy got them to think it was their idea in the first place. Like Dr. Owens bringing them in for a “talking to” in front of the Hawkins gate, or Mr. Walter back in Junior History, giving everyone points back on a test because one of his questions had been too ambiguous.

Jonathan had no idea what this meant about himself or his relationships, so he decided not to think too hard about it. If only for his own sanity.

When they got home, Jonathan heard laughing coming from the back yard. He went around the side of the house and found Hopper playing with Jenny on the swing set he and Steve had put up over winter break, back in January. Jenny was pumping her legs, swinging under her own power, and Hop was growling at her, pretending to be a monster. The game made Jenny squeal and laugh.

Jonathan couldn’t remember his own father ever _playing_ with him. Lonnie would do things like force Jonathan to go hunting with him, or try to “teach” him how to hit a baseball, or make Jonathan help him work on his car restoration projects, but Lonnie never played. Not like this. 

It made Jonathan happy for Jenny, and sad for himself at the same time. And then he thought about bringing his own kid home for Hop to play grandpa to, and it was this weird longing feeling that he’d never experienced before. 

He’d known he wanted to build a happy relationship for himself, something more stable and more profound than his parents had ever had, at least more than the relationship they'd had as long as he’d known them. But now Jonathan thought he might want to put a little mental label on his relationship that said, “Family.” And add a kid to it eventually.

Jonathan thought, in that moment, it was the first time he’d actually seriously entertained the thought of raising a kid himself. Not that he wanted to do that anytime soon, but eventually, yeah. Probably. 

Steve would be happy about Jonathan’s thoughts on the matter, but Jonathan was pretty sure Nancy wouldn’t be. The last he’d spoken to her about anything like that, she’d been adamant that she didn’t want marriage and kids and a house in the suburbs.

But watching this, here, looked pretty great to Jonathan. God, he’d have to talk to her about it at some point. But maybe it didn’t matter so much now. They were only a year into college. As short as their time seemed when the world was ending, there was still time. Plenty of it. 

He hoped. 

Jonathan spent the rest of the afternoon packing the things he figured he would need on the trip. Most of it was clothes, but he also packed some books, a bunch of cassettes, an empty notebook and some pens, and all the unexposed rolls of film he had. Obviously his camera was coming with as well, and all of his bathroom things.

He was just starting to wander upstairs to find some way of occupying his time, when he felt Steve and Nancy get close enough that he could feel their presences. He’d just seen them the previous evening, when they’d had dinner at Nero’s with Hop before parting ways, but the prospect of seeing them again made him more excited than he realized it would. 

When he wandered into the kitchen, Joyce handed Jonathan a potato peeler and a stack of russets. “What’s got you smiling?” she asked. 

“Steve and Nancy are almost here,” he told her, closing his eyes and tilting his head as he tried to gauge the distance. “Ten or fifteen minutes out.”

Joyce laughed softly and patted Jonathan’s arm. “That’s ten or fifteen minutes you can spend helping make dinner.”

“Yeah, it is,” he replied, getting to work.

He and Joyce got everything set and ready to go in the oven, just before Steve and Nancy pulled into the driveway. Jonathan met them on the stairs up into the house, giving each of them a hug, and taking Nancy’s bag for her. “It’s good to see you guys,” he said, waiting until the front door was closed before kissing either of them.

He almost didn’t get a chance to kiss Steve before Jenny came tearing out of her room, crying, “Steve! Steve! Steve!”

“Hey, squirt!” Steve said as he caught her and put her under one of his arms, carrying her down into the open space of the living room before tilting her all the way upside down. “Why’s your hair all sticking up? How do you get it to do that?”

“I’m upside down, Steve!” she cried with a peal of laughter as Steve turned her around again and set her on her feet. 

“How was mini golf? Did you destroy everyone?”

“El won,” Jenny said, crossing her arms and frowning, which had been happening ever since the game ended just before lunch. “I think she cheated.”

“She didn’t cheat,” Jonathan insisted, having to give up Nancy under his arm so Joyce could hug her.

“Who’s Chevy is that in the driveway?” Steve asked, looking out the front picture window. 

“Yours,” Joyce told him, going over and giving him a hug. “For the summer, at least.”

“Mom!” Steve cried, hugging her back. “What the hell? Really?”

“I’ll drive your Omni for the summer,” Joyce explained. “You kids need a reliable car for this trip you’re going on.”

“Wha–” Steve said in bafflement, then he looked back at the car. “Can I…”

Jonathan took the keys out of his pocket and held them out where Steve could grab them.

“Thanks, babe!” Steve said with a big grin as he kissed Jonathan and took the keys, striding out of the house. A minute later the engine fired up and he backed out of the driveway. 

“I’m assuming he’s coming back at some point, right?” Nancy asked with a laugh. 

“He’s going to take it around the block,” Jenny said, then she quickly looked to Joyce. “Sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know, sweetie,” Joyce told her, pulling Jenny in for a hug. “We’ll keep working on it.”

Jenny told Jonathan and Nancy, “If I get good at remembering not to read people, I get to go to school in the fall.”

“I’m sure you’ll do great,” Nancy assured her. 

Jonathan nudged Nancy’s shoulder with his own, asking her, “Wanna see our new room?”

“Sure,” she said with a grin, following when Jonathan grabbed up Steve’s bag and led the way downstairs.

~*~

The alarm on Jonathan’s watch went off right next to Nancy’s ear, startling her awake. For a second she had no idea where she was, until she realized it was the new room at the Byers house. It still smelled a little bit like paint. She thought, if they solved the case quickly, it might be nice to spend the rest of the summer here. Family dinner the night before had been so nice, and welcoming, and easy. No one had to hide who they were or what relationship they were in, or any of that bullshit. Not like she and Steve had to do at breakfast that morning, or even when they went out to lunch with Steve's mom.

Hopper had come back to the table after dinner, sitting next to Nancy and slapping down a spiral-bound atlas. “Here’s the route you’re going to want to take,” he said, tracing the interstates and highways with a yellow highlighter. “It’s almost summer, so the passes through the mountains should be relatively clear. I bet you could get all the way to Cheyenne tomorrow, if you start early enough.”

“Thank you,” Nancy told him, taking the map and giving Hop a hug. “I really appreciate this.”

Hop had given her a long look, and then nodded. “Better finish packing, before it gets too late.”

Now that it was morning, Nancy grinned. Their adventure was starting today. She scooted up and kissed Jonathan. I took a couple kisses before he mumbled and actually woke up. The room was fairly dark, but when Nancy used her hand to find Steve, she didn’t have to go far. She found his hair first, and his forehead pressed against Jonathan’s shoulder. 

“Time to get up!” she told him, pressing a kiss to his temple. She found Jonathan and kissed him again too. “Let’s go!”

“Nance, babe?” Steve mumbled, rustling through the blankets as he moved. “Wanna go start the coffee? I’m gonna need it.” He groaned and maybe yawned. 

Jonathan moved away from Nancy, toward Steve, and then the bedside lamp was on. 

Squinting in the light, Steve made a noise of complaint, so Nancy took pity on him. Getting out of bed and pulling on the clothes she'd set out for the day, she told him, "I will go start the coffee. You guys start getting dressed. If we're going to make Cheyenne before midnight, we've got to get moving!"

Except in the time it took to brew the coffee, finish packing some snacks for the road, eat a bowl of cereal, wash out the bowl, and pour three mugs of coffee, the boys still hadn't made their way upstairs. Nancy balanced the mugs carefully and made her way back downstairs. When she encountered the closed bedroom door, she couldn't open it with her hands full.

With a frustrated huff, Nancy kicked the door and called through it, "Open the door. I have coffee!"

_That_ got someone moving, and it was Jonathan who opened the door, still in his underwear. In fact, his hair was more disheveled than it had been when Nancy left, his lips were bitten red, and there was a mottled flush on his neck and chest. He smiled and took two of the mugs from Nancy, kissing her and saying, “Thank you, sweetheart.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, following him into the room and closing the door behind her. 

Steve was awake and sitting up in bed, at least. Nancy was pretty sure the sheet tucked high on his waist meant that he was still naked. Jonathan gave Steve the mug that was considerably lighter colored than the others. 

“What happened to getting dressed?” she asked, sitting down at the foot of the bed.

“We got distracted,” Steve told her, taking a sip and then making a face. “Oh, those two things do not go together!”

“What two things?” Nancy asked, noticing Jonathan snicker into his coffee. “You always drink it more milk than coffee.”

“No, it’s good, Nance. Thanks,” Steve insisted, taking a few more sips. “Just gotta finish washing it down.”

Nancy started to ask, “Washing wh–” but then she recognized the look Steve gave Jonathan. “Oh.” Nancy rolled her eyes. “Are you done now, at least?”

“Yeah, we’re done,” Jonathan said, setting his mug on the nightstand and standing up. He leaned down and tilted Nancy’s chin up with a finger, giving her a soft kiss. “Unless you need some attention before we go.”

“I’m good,” Nancy insisted, taking another kiss when he gave her one. “Put your pants on. Let’s go!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jonathan said, giving Steve another flirty smile before heading for his bag on the dresser.

Once the boys were dressed, they threw the last few things in their bags and took their empty coffee mugs back to the kitchen. Joyce was waiting at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in her hands as well. She was twiddling with a spoon in that way Nancy was pretty sure meant Joyce was craving a cigarette. 

Jonathan has told Nancy that Joyce had cut way back on smoking when they moved out of Hawkins, and even further back when Steve came home from the Nine situation with lung damage. He also told her he still sometimes found cigarette butts out in the driveway. Still, Nancy admired Joyce’s commitment to cutting down, at least. It couldn’t have been easy.

“Hey,” Joyce said, perking up when she saw them. She stood up and pulled each of them into a hug. “Can I make anyone some breakfast?”

“No,” and, “No, thanks,” said Jonathan and Steve in unison. 

Joyce scoffed, and Nancy thought there must have been some story there, but no one was forthcoming with it. 

Nancy told her, “I already had a bowl of cereal. Thanks, Mrs. Byers.”

“Oh, call me Joyce,” she insisted. “Please, Nancy. We’re all family here.”

Nancy knew she felt like Jonathan and Steve were her family, and their family was hers by extension. Still, it felt nice to know that feeling was reciprocated, on Joyce’s part anyway. 

“Thanks, Joyce,” Nancy said earnestly, accepting another hug. “And thanks for letting me take these guys away for the summer.”

Joyce laughed. “Oh, sweetie. They’d follow you anywhere, whatever I had to say about it. We both know that!”

Nancy laughed and Jonathan pulled her close, kissing her temple. She looked for Steve and found him pouring a bowl of cereal. 

“Steve! We’re leaving in a minute!” she said.

He shrugged and said, “I’m starving, but I promise, I’ll eat quick. Watch, I’ll be done before Will drags his ass out of bed to say goodbye.”

“I’ll go start waking everyone up,” Joyce said, taking her coffee with her as she went down the hall. 

Steve came over and sat on the kitchen table, facing Nancy and Jonathan as he ate. “Got everything we need?” he asked. 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Everyone’s got their wallets and driver’s licenses?”

“Yup,” Steve said. Then he lifted a spoonful of cereal and offered it to Jonathan with raised eyebrows. Jonathan leaned over the bowl and let Steve feed him. 

“I’ve got the envelope with the traveling cash,” Nancy said, patting her purse. “All the rest of the essentials.”

El and Jenny wandered into the room, both looking sleepy and disheveled. Jenny sat at the table, but El just gave them all hugs and said, “Bye,” before leaving the room again, presumably to go back to sleep. 

Steve traded off between taking his own bites of cereal and feeding Jonathan which was completely, infuriatingly adorable. “Can’t you just get your own spoon?” Nancy asked Jonathan.

Jonathan shrugged. “This works.”

“We’re not supposed to share spoons,” Jenny said. “Or cups or forks or dishes. It shares germs.”

“She’s absolutely right,” Nancy insisted, giving the little girl a smile. 

Joyce came back into the kitchen, asking Jenny, “Cereal?”

“I want my own bowl and spoon,” she said, and Joyce looked momentarily confused until she saw Steve feed Jonathan again. 

Chuckling, Joyce complied with Jenny’s request.

Steve tipped the bowl, drinking the milk, or half of it anyway. He passed the bowl to Jonathan so he could drink the rest, and then took it back to rinse it out in the sink. 

That’s when Will made his appearance, shuffling straight toward Jonathan. Steve gave Nancy a _look_ as he joined her. She flicked his ribs, but let him wrap her up in his arms anyway. 

Hopper came in and poured his coffee, taking several sips and sitting down next to Jenny before asking, “Atlas in the car?”

“Yes,” Nancy told him. “We just have a couple more bags by the door and we’re all set.”

Hop nodded, leaning his cheek against the top of Jenny’s head when she hugged his arm. It was cute, and so much easier and less awkward than every time her own father tried to express any sort of affection. It made Nancy glad for Jenny, that she’d ended up here. So many other places would have been so much worse, for her particularly.

Then there were hugs all around and goodbyes, and Hop and Jenny and Joyce all waved from the front porch as Nancy started the car and pulled out of the driveway. 

“Okay, boys,” she said, shifting the car into drive. “Here we go!”


	3. Road Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio makes their way west, enjoying the time alone together.

Jonathan waited until they’d been on the road for a few hours and the sun was bright and hot above them before he turned the stereo down a bit and said, “Can I ask you guys about something?”

“Sure,” Nancy said from the driver’s seat.

Steve leaned forward in the back seat, asking, “What is it?”

“What do you guys think about someday – like not anytime soon, but someday, when we’re older – having kids?” Jonathan felt Steve’s emotions warm up, but Nancy’s felt more than a little turbulent. 

“Little kids are awesome,” Steve told them, putting his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t mind having a few. Eventually, like you said.”

Sadness spiked through Nancy, so Jonathan asked, “Nancy? What are you thinking?”

“I… don’t want kids,” she told them, and Jonathan felt Steve’s heart breaking a little bit. 

Shit. This was such a stupid idea. This was going to turn into a fight, wasn’t it? And while they were all stuck together in the car, too.

Steve’s voice was gentle when he asked, “What makes you say that, Nance? What is it you’re afraid of?”

Jonathan felt stupid for not realizing it earlier. Nancy was afraid. Jesus, and _Jonathan_ was supposed to be the one who could read emotions. 

“I just…” Nancy said, her eyes on the road ahead of them. She took a few moments before she very carefully said, “I saw what having kids did to my mom. I don’t want a life like that.”

“No, you saw what being married to Ted Wheeler when she had kids did to your mom,” Steve argued. “Whatever you’re scared of, I can fix it. We,” he put his hand over on Jonathan’s shoulder, “can fix it.”

“I want a career,” Nancy told him. “I want to do interesting things and go interesting places and not be tied down.”

“Not tied down by babies, or not tied down at all?" Steve asked. "What happens when I get a teaching job? What happens when I have to stay in one place all year? Won’t you come home to me when you’re done traveling? Don’t you _want_ a place to call home?” Jonathan could feel how forlorn and almost resigned Steve felt about the matter.

“Baby,” Jonathan breathed, reaching back to cup Steve’s face in his hand. 

“I…” Nancy glanced over at Jonathan, and then in the rear view mirror to look back at Steve. “I do want that. I do want a home, and I want it with you both.”

Jonathan sighed with relief, and he felt it coming from Steve, too.

Nancy continued, “I just don’t want to be trapped there all the time. I don’t want to do middle of the night feedings, and I don’t want to change diapers, and I don’t want to be the person keeping the kid alive 24 hours a day. It’s too much." She looked over at Jonathan. "It’s too much.”

Jonathan nodded. He understood. He knew how hard his mom always worked, how much she’d sacrificed for him and his brother. It made sense. 

From the back, Steve said, “Okay, but counterpoint. There’s three of us. That’s already less work that each of us has to do. Plus, babies totally love me. I can do all the stuff you don’t want to do.”

“You’d do that?” Nancy asked, and there was a glimmer of something hopeful coming from her. “Diaper changes and midnight feedings and all that crap?”

Steve’s voice was warm when he said, “Yeah. I would. Plus, if I’m a teacher, I can totally watch the kid when school’s out for the summer.”

Nancy nodded, “I– I’m still not completely sure. Can I say maybe, for now?”

“Sure,” Jonathan insisted, getting a nod from Steve as well. “Maybe works for now.”

“But _you_ want kids at some point?” she asked him.

“Yeah, but…” Jonathan sighed and looked back at Steve. “If we had kids, I’d want them to be yours. Not mine.”

“Why not yours?” Steve asked. “They’d be so cute, with little cleft chins and dimples.” He cupped Jonathan’s chin in his hand and ran his thumb across Jonathan’s cheek.

“And maybe _abilities_ ,” Jonathan pointed out.

Steve then brushed his thumb across Jonathan’s forehead. “Would that be so bad?”

“It would make them targets,” Jonathan insisted, thinking about all those people Execugen had captured and terrorized. “I can’t put that on anyone else. Make them vulnerable to the same sort of shit I just went through. Especially not someone so little and innocent.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Steve replied with a deep sigh. “I suppose our kids will just have to be cursed with awesome hair instead.”

Jonathan laughed, reaching up and pulling Steve’s hair down over his eyes.

“Hey!” Steve cried, pushing it back again. “Abuse!”

“I thought you like it when I pull your hair,” Jonathan said, brushing the side of Steve’s jaw with his fingertips.

Steve shivered and laughed softly. “Yeah, I kinda do.”

“Oh, don’t start,” Nancy told them. “We still have ten more hours of driving to get through today.”

Jonathan laughed and turned to face the front of the car. He watched the flat landscape roll past and sighed happily. Steve wanted kids, probably more than Jonathan did. Nancy maybe wanted them. Jonathan wondered if her answer would be different if they adopted a kid, like his parents had adopted Jenny. He had a feeling it might.

Then he realized he was getting warm, but it was an odd sort of warm that felt almost like… Jonathan turned around in his seat to look at Steve, who appeared to just be looking out the window. Except Jonathan could feel what he was feeling, and that gave him a pretty good idea of what Steve was thinking about. Or rather, fantasizing about.

Jonathan told him, "You're lucky I'm not driving right now."

Steve grinned.

"What are you–" Nancy started to ask, but then she figured it out. "Oh. _Steve_!"

"Hey, it's not my fault," Steve insisted, still wearing that grin. "He's the one who started talking about making babies and then pulled my hair."

Jonathan said, “I’m ignoring you now, for my own sanity, if nothing else.” Then he blocked Steve out, no longer listening to his emotions. He still felt Nancy’s amusement and love. That would have to do for now.

~*~

Steve took over driving after a few hours, with Jonathan manning the tape deck and Nancy taking a nap in the back seat. He was driving on Highway 2, cutting from I-29 over to I-80. And the land was so flat, it was almost eerie. Growing up in eastern Indiana, Steve was used to a more varied landscape. Hills and valleys. Patches of forest surrounding the farmers’ fields. Out here, there were trees, but rarely did he see more than a dozen standing together in one place. 

He vaguely thought about what it might look like at night, how dark things would get out here. Offhand, Steve wondered if it would look anything like that dark place Nine had trapped him in. That day still felt more like a weird dream to Steve than anything else. Over the past year and a half, there had been a few times where Steve had woken up unable to move yet (Joyce called it sleep paralysis when he asked). Each and every time it happened, Steve had the sinking worry that he’d been trapped inside his mind this whole time, and someone else was driving.

Of course no one was and he’d always been able to move again a few seconds later, but it didn’t erase the fear.

He’d been thinking about that fear for awhile, when he realized he’d been waiting for Jonathan to ask about it. Looking over at Jonathan, Steve said, “You can listen to me again, or whatever. I’ll be good.”

Jonathan smiled and nodded, reaching over and resting his hand on the back of Steve’s neck as they drove.

The gas gauge started getting low around the same time Steve’s stomach started to rumble, so when they got to the interstate, Steve didn’t pull onto it, but drove a few blocks down to the restaurant he’d spotted. Putting the car into park, he looked over and saw that Jonathan had dozed off somewhere in the last half mile or so. Nancy was still asleep in the back, too. 

He almost leaned over to wake Jonathan up with a kiss, but there was a group of people leaving the restaurant and he didn’t want to push his luck that he wouldn’t be seen. Sighing, Steve shook Jonathan’s shoulder. “Hey, time for lunch, huh?”

Jonathan stirred, giving Steve a sleepy smile and a nod. His heart clenching with love and frustrated that he couldn’t just kiss the boy he loved whenever he wanted, Steve got out of the car. He opened the back door and leaned in, waking Nancy up with a kiss, because at least he could still kiss her. Nancy's eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him.

"We stopped," she said, adorably confused. "Gas?"

"Lunch," Steve insisted, thinking about the promise he'd made to Nancy's mom to take care of her. "C'mon. Let's get some food in you."

By the time they made it to Cheyenne, the sun had already gone down. They found a motel and got a room, checked in with Joyce, and then collapsed into one of the two motel room beds together, exhausted. "Why is traveling all day so tiring?" Steve asked the others, putting his hand up the back of Jonathan's shirt and scooting just a little bit closer to him.

"I don't know," Nancy told him, frowning as she kicked off her shoes. 

Steve pulled on Jonathan’s shirt, and he grumbled, but he let Steve take it off him. “We have to drive even further tomorrow,” Jonathan said with a pout that Steve couldn’t help but kiss.

“Maybe we’ll take an extra half a day to get there,” Nancy told them. "Stop in the mountains or something. Somewhere romantic." She turned to face them with a smile. "Maybe enjoy ourselves a little bit."

"I like the sound of that," Steve told her, reaching across Jonathan to pull her into a kiss. While he did that, Jonathan pushed Steve’s shirt up and kissed the underside of Steve’s jaw. 

Not nearly as sleepy as he had been a moment before, Steve pulled back far enough to get his shirt the rest of the way off and then undo Nancy’s shorts. As he pulled them off her, he kissed her leg and asked, “What are we in the mood for tonight?”

"Mm, want you inside me," Nancy said, sitting up and reaching for Steve's fly. 

Beside them Jonathan groaned and said, "Shit."

"What?" Nancy asked him, looking over as Steve got out of his jeans and underwear.

"Nothing," Jonathan insisted, laughing when Nancy poked his side. "I just…" He gave Steve a hungry sort of look.

Steve knew that look. He laughed a little and shrugged as he reached for Jonathan's pants to get them off him. "You guys could rock-paper-scissors for it," he suggested.

"For what?" Nancy asked, turning toward Jonathan and pressing against his side. 

"No, you called it," Jonathan insisted to Nancy, sliding his hand into her hair and kissing her. "I'll probably come when you do, anyway. I can wait until tomorrow."

"Is this gonna be a thing, now that we're all living together?" Steve asked them, curling his fingers around the waistband of Jonathan's boxers and waiting for his nod before pulling them off. "You guys fighting over my dick? I mean, I know I'm good, but…"

Jonathan kicked him and Nancy smacked his arm. "Don't get a big head about it," she said with a scoff, but she tilted her hips up and let Steve take her underwear off. “But maybe we should have a system?”

“A system? Like a color-coded chart?” Steve asked, crawling onto the bed over Nancy. “A calendar of who gets fucked when? Yeah, _that_ sounds hot." He scoffed.

Jonathan laughed and sat halfway up, pushing his hand into Steve’s hair and nipping at the corner of his jaw. “Maybe a reward chart,” he said in a low voice, close enough to Steve’s ear to give him goosebumps and make him shiver. “You only get fucked if you’re a good boy who’s earned it.”

“Fuuuck,” Steve groaned, grinding against Nancy’s thigh.

“I think he likes that idea,” Nancy said, taking Steve’s hand and kissing it before pushing it down toward her pussy.

“I am a grown man, and I don’t need a fucking sticker chart,” Steve insisted, pulling Nancy into a kiss as he pressed his fingers to the mound around her clit. Nancy sighed, her breath hitching when he dipped his fingers further down and found her wet already. “I just like making you guys feel good, is all.”

Steve dragged his slick-wet fingers up and across Nancy’s clit, watching as Jonathan closed his eyes and shuddered too. This was one of the fun parts about having a boyfriend who had superpowers. Jonathan could feel a lot of what Steve was making Nancy feel.

Still, Steve didn’t want Jonathan to be a spectator. That didn’t seem fair at all. So Steve said to him, “Hey, c’mere, baby.”

Steve got Jonathan to kiss him a few times, biting at his lower lip and sucking on his tongue until Nancy pulled Jonathan to her. While they kissed, Steve’s mouth felt too empty, so he scooted down on the bed and put his face between Nancy’s legs. 

When he licked up her slit and then sucked on her clit, Nancy squealed against Jonathan’s lips. Her heels slid against the bed sheets and she squirmed under him. Jonathan groaned too, grinding against Nancy’s hip. After a few more licks, Steve cleared his throat and asked, “Jonathan, can I touch you?”

A year ago, Steve wouldn’t have bothered asking, because the answer was always yes, or yes but not now. But since the whole Execugen thing, Jonathan needed more control over when and how Steve or Nancy touched his cock. Today must have been a good day, because Jonathan said, “Yes, fuck. Yeah.”

Steve gave Nancy one last lick before turning to Jonathan, grabbing his cock and giving it a few strokes before licking the head, and then sucking him in. 

“Oh, shit,” Jonathan sighed, pushing his fingers into the hair on the top of Steve’s head. “God, baby. Your _mouth_. Oh!”

Steve heard Nancy murmur to Jonathan, “Mm, how pretty does he look with your cock in his mouth?” 

Steve whimpered and had to remind himself not to rub off against the sheets. He tried to distract himself by pressing two fingers into Nancy and rubbing her clit with his thumb, but mostly he was paying attention to the little thrusts Jonathan was giving and the way he tugged on Steve’s hair to hold his head in place.

“You should come on his tongue,” Nancy said, clenching around Steve’s fingers. “You know how much he loves the way you taste.”

“Oh, Jesus, Nancy!” Jonathan cried, kissing her again, his cock getting harder in Steve’s mouth and his fingers tightening in Steve’s hair. 

Steve moved his tongue up Jonathan’s cock and rubbed hard and fast on Nancy’s clit with his thumb and then they were both coming and Steve’s mouth was full, and then his face was wet when Jonathan slipped out, but he didn’t care, because he was too busy getting Nancy flipped over onto her hands and knees and sinking into her and, “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Nancy cried out, “Oh, yes! Steve! C’mon, harder!” and there was come dripping down into Steve’s lip, but he didn’t dare lick at it, because he was already too close to coming before he gave Nancy what she needed. 

Jonathan left the bed for a second before he kneeled at Steve’s shoulder, running his hand over Steve’s back and down his ass and squeezing as the muscle flexed. Nancy pressed her face into the pillow and _screamed_. Steve felt himself just about to come when Jonathan’s wet thumb was suddenly in Steve’s ass and pressing on his prostate _just_ hard enough. Steve cried out and he came so hard his vision went white. 

He let himself slump back against Jonathan, breathing hard and grasping the arm Jonathan put around him, holding him up. “Fucking hell, you guys,” Steve sighed, blinking until he could see straight and wiping the come off his face. “That was…”

Nancy laughed, turning around again onto her back and reaching for him. Steve patted and kissed Jonathan’s arm and then went to Nancy, settling himself against her shoulder, and throwing his leg over her thighs for good measure. “You did so good, sweetheart,” Nancy said, tilting Steve’s chin up with gentle fingers and kissing him. 

Her words made Steve’s chest feel warm and tight, so he hugged her closer and said, “I love you.”

“You, too,” she insisted, but then she was pushing on his shoulder, saying, “Hey, turn over for a second.”

God, he was so sleepy, but he did as she asked, and Jonathan was there with a smile and a wet washcloth. 

“Hold still,” Jonathan told him, wiping Steve’s face with the warm cloth. He laughed, “God, it got all over you! Did you get any in your eye?”

“Hey, I’m no amateur,” Steve insisted, making Jonathan and Nancy both laugh again. “There might be some in my,” Steve brushed his hair back away from his face and hit a wet spot, “hair. Babe, you got come in my hair!”

Jonathan laughed again, loud and bright. “Sorry! I didn’t expect you to move when you did.” He carefully rubbed the cloth over the wet spot, until it was just wet and no longer sticky. 

When Jonathan left to put the cloth back in the bathroom, Steve settled back against the pillows and pulled Nancy close. She covered them both with the blankets and pillowed her head on Steve’s shoulder. Jonathan turned off the light and slipped into bed with them, laying mostly on top of Steve, with one arm and leg on the bed, the other leg between Steve’s and the other arm over Nancy. Over the years, Jonathan had figured out just the right way to balance the position between making Steve feel safe and crushing him.

“Mmm, I like living with you guys already,” Steve told them. 

Nancy kissed his shoulder and Jonathan mumbled something unintelligible. Steve held them both close and fell asleep.

~*~

Leaving Cheyenne in the morning, Nancy couldn’t help but stare at the mountains as they approached. She hadn’t really seen them the night before, since it had gotten dark before they left Nebraska. The mountains were so high and so wide, Nancy couldn’t help but say, “They’re incredible!”

“They’re mountains,” Steve said from the driver’s seat. “Have you…” He looked over at Nancy and asked, “Have you never seen mountains before?”

Nancy shook her head. “No, I haven’t. Not in person.

From the back seat, Jonathan said, “I haven’t either.”

“Not even the Appalachians?” Steve shook his head in amazement. “Sorry. I forgot not everyone’s parents do their business networking at ski lodges and drag their kids along.”

“Do you know how to ski?” Jonathan asked, and Steve nodded. 

“Yeah, sure. I haven’t been in, like, five years, but it’s not that hard.”

Nancy smiled at him and shook her head. Steve was the sort of natural athlete who would take to a skill like skiing with no problems. “Maybe someday the three of us can take a skiing trip, and you can teach us.”

With a brilliant smile, Steve said, “Yeah! That sounds fun.”

About an hour later, as the interstate wound its way through the mountains, Jonathan said, “Hey, Steve, take this exit, would you?”

“What? You gotta pee? Doesn’t look like there’s–”

“Just take the exit,” Jonathan insisted. “Then pull over. I have to…”

Steve pulled over on the shoulder of the road that intersected the freeway. Jonathan got out, and put his camera up to his face, taking a picture. Then another. 

“Oh,” Steve said, and then he smiled his besotted smile and turned off the engine. When he got out of the car, Nancy figured it would be a good time to get out and stretch her legs too. The air outside the car was cooler than she expected, given how sunny it was out, so she grabbed her jacket from the back seat and put it on.

Steve came around the car, leaning against it next to Nancy, and putting his arm around her shoulders. Nancy leaned into him and when she looked up at him and smiled, Steve bent down and kissed her. Jonathan's camera clicked again, but from closer this time. When Nancy looked up, he was just a few feet away, lowering his camera and smiling at them. 

"Think you can get one with all three of us in it?" Steve asked him, waving Jonathan closer. 

"I don't know," Jonathan said, turning the camera around. He held it out at arm's length. "Everyone say 'cheese'!"

Steve laughed, and Nancy was pretty sure she and Steve were both looking over at Jonathan when the shutter opened. "God, I love you," Steve said, his eyes fixed on Jonathan. 

Jonathan smiled and swayed a little closer to Steve, like he wanted to be kissed. She watched Steve settle for squeezing his hand before stepping away. After all, they were right out on the road, in plain sight of anyone driving by. 

His cheeks a little pink, Jonathan said, "You too, Steve."

Nancy pulled Jonathan closer, kissing him, partly because she loved him too, but mostly because Steve couldn't and it looked like Jonathan needed it. Watching them unable to share the easy affection they had in private broke Nancy's heart.

Then Steve grabbed Nancy, picking her up and spinning her around, getting her to shriek and laugh. "And I love you, too, Nance," he insisted, burying his face in her neck and nibbling at her, making her shriek again. "What do we think? A few more hours before we stop for lunch?"

"Something like that," Nancy said, holding out her hand until Steve gave her the keys. "Let's go!"

~*~

When it was Jonathan’s turn to ride in the back seat in the late afternoon, he covered his eyes with the sleeve of his sweatshirt and said to Steve, “Hey, turn the radio to static for a minute, would you?”

“Sure.”

It wasn’t perfect, like the tub, because of the occasional bumps and curves in the road, but Jonathan found the Inbetween easily enough. He followed the El-feeling in his head and sent a thought at her across the void. 

_Hey, can you hear me?_

After a few seconds, El appeared before him, a happy smile on her face. “Jonathan! How are you?”

“Fine. Safe,” he told her watching as El reached over and pulled Jenny into the Inbetween with her. 

“Jonathan!” she cried, running over and giving him a hug. 

“What were you guys doing?” Jonathan asked. 

“El is watching me while Mom and Hoppy are at dinner. We made bracelets.” Jenny grabbed Jonathan’s hand and showed him her day in a rapid-fire series of memories.

“Where’s Will?” Jonathan asked. 

El rolled her eyes. “He’s trying to play D&D over the phone with Mike and the others.”

Jonathan laughed, picturing it. “Tell him hi for me?”

Nodding, El asked him, “Talk again tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” he agreed, pulling her into a hug.

Letting the connection drop, Jonathan told Steve and Nancy, “Everything’s still good at home.”

“We’re so far, and you can still reach them?” Nancy asked, handing Jonathan a tissue from her purse.

He blotted his nose clean and nodded. “Yeah. I’ll try again tomorrow, when we’re even further out.”

They decided to stop for the night in Baker City, about six hours short of their eventual destination. Jonathan could tell that Nancy wanted to press a little further, but he could also tell how exhausted they all were. He thought maybe Steve would forget about the night before, but the motel room door was barely closed before Steve crowded Jonathan further into the room, and then back onto the bed with a set of heated kisses.

"It's torture," Steve said, pulling back to strip out of his clothes as Jonathan hurried to do the same.

"What is?" Nancy asked him, pulling her toothbrush out of her bag and going to the sink. 

"Being in the car with you guys all day," Steve told them, helping Jonathan get his jeans off. "And not being able to touch you."

"I know what you mean," Jonathan insisted, accepting Steve into his arms when he rejoined him on the bed. 

Desperate kisses turned into desperate touches, and then Steve was fucking him. The feel of Steve moving in him satisfied that crawling, needing ache Jonathan developed when it had been too long since the last time. Nancy kissed him and she asked him before she wrapped her hand around his cock and stroked him until he was coming.

He and Steve worked together with their hands and tongues to get Nancy off, and then they collapsed into sleep. 

Halfway through the night, Jonathan woke up to Nancy making small whimpering noises in his ear. His first thought was that Steve was fucking her or something, but Steve was asleep and snoring. It was more difficult to read her emotions when she was asleep, but he thought she might have been afraid of something. A nightmare.

“Nancy,” Jonathan said, smoothing away the furrow in her brow. “Wake up, sweetheart. You’re okay. It’s okay.”

Nancy took a sharp breath and grabbed onto Jonathan’s wrist.

“It’s okay,” Jonathan told her again. “You’re safe.”

“Oh. Jonathan,” she said, moving closer to him and letting him wrap his arms around her. “I was...running, I think,” she said, shivering in his arms. “Running away from something.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her trembling slowing down and then stopping. 

On Nancy’s other side, Steve moved closer, pressing his nose into Jonathan’s shoulder and wrapping his arm around Nancy before falling asleep again. 

It took Nancy a few minutes, but then Jonathan felt the way her emotions turned fuzzier and less focused as she fell asleep. He held her closely, hoping it would chase away her nightmares the way it always worked for him.


	4. The Investigation Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They reach Salem and start digging into the case.

When they reached Salem it was mid afternoon, and Nancy was itching to get started on the case. The sheriff had told them to call and make an appointment before coming in. So, they stopped at a diner near the sheriff’s office, where the boys ordered coffee and pie. Nancy used the pay phone to call ahead. After speaking to the sheriff’s receptionist, Nancy went back to the table, sitting next to Jonathan and stealing a few sips of his coffee. 

“The sheriff can meet with us in an hour,” she told them, reaching across the table to take Steve’s fork and grab a bite of his chocolate silk pie. “What do you guys want to do until then?”

“Should we think about finding a place to stay?” Jonathan asked. “At least for tonight?”

“I think most of these disappearances are happening outside the city,” Nancy told him, holding onto Jonathan’s arm and snuggling close to him. The diner had too much air conditioning for the outfit Nancy decided to wear and she was starting to feel really cold. “Maybe we should wait until after we talk to the sheriff, see if he has any suggestions.”

“We could wander around town for a few minutes,” Steve said. “I bet Jenny would love a postcard or something.”

“She would,” Jonathan agreed, so the three of them set off from the diner after finishing their pie. They found a little shop with touristy things on the main road through town, so they went in, and Steve chose a postcard with mountains on it. 

“If _you_ guys went nuts over the mountains, guess how much Jenny is gonna flip when she gets this,” Steve told them, buying a stamp from the shop as well.

And then it was time to meet the Sheriff. 

Nancy led the way, going right up to the receptionist and telling her they had an appointment. She showed them back through a room that looked a lot like the Hawkins PD bullpen, and into the sheriff’s office. 

Standing up, he reached for and shook Nancy’s hand, saying, “Cyrus Wyatt. You said you’re Murray Bauman’s representatives?”

“Yes,” Nancy insisted, waiting for Sheriff Wyatt to shake Steve’s, then Jonathan’s hand before taking one of the two seats offered. Steve offered the other one to Jonathan, and stood behind Nancy’s chair as she told the Sheriff their names. “We’re here to help get to the bottom of these disappearances.”

Wyatt sat back in his chair, looking over them, and asked, “How much experience do you all have? What do you think you can do that my deputies can’t?”

“We’re not sure yet,” Nancy told him. “But we do have experience, especially with…” she put this next word as delicately as possible, “ _odd_ sorts of cases.”

“Missing kids, missing teenagers, missing college kids,” Steve listed off from behind Nancy.

Jonathan spoke up, saying, “It’s sort of a special interest of ours, ever since my brother got lost in the woods for a week.”

Nancy nodded. “We helped locate him.”

“Helped get him back,” Steve added. 

“Plus,” Nancy added, “we’ll have Mr. Bauman consulting with us every step of the way.”

“What’s the harm in letting us try?” Jonathan asked, and Nancy noticed the way Sheriff Wyatt’s body language shifted slightly at that. “If we don’t find out what’s going on, we just won’t get the reward.”

Leaning forward, with a quiet voice, Nancy asked, “Who did you lose?”

Wyatt’s eyes widened with surprise, but Nancy’s educated guess seemed to impress him. He took a thick file out of his desk drawer and opened it. He turned a few pages, then took a school portrait out and slid it across the table. It was a picture of a young man, probably late high school if Nancy had to guess. He had short-cropped blonde hair and a sweet smile. She recognized him from one of the newspaper clippings Murray had given her.

“Miles Lynton,” Wyatt told them. “My daughter’s boyfriend. They went hiking last fall, and she swears he just disappeared.” He leaned closer and said in a soft voice, “I thought he must have fallen in a sink hole or over a cliff edge or something, but Morgan insists that she watched him vanish into thin air.” He sat back and shook his head. “I almost wonder if it's just her grief talking.”

Nancy looked over at Jonathan, and she could tell he was thinking something similar. The only times anyone had vanished abruptly around Hawkins was when they’d been pulled into the Upside Down.

“All of the people vanished from the same hiking trail?” Nancy asked. 

“Not exactly.” Wyatt pulled a map out of the file and unfolded it. “There are a number of hiking trails in the area around Logan, here in the mountains on the eastern side of the county. I’ve marked all of the sites where people have gone.”

Nancy leaned closer to look at the map. “Can we get the information on the order in which these disappearances happened?”

“Sure,” Wyatt said with a shrug. “We haven’t been able to determine any sort of pattern, but you’re welcome to try.”

“When was the last disappearance?” Steve asked.

“Alexis Breckinridge, right?” Nancy asked, thinking of all the notes she’d made about the newspaper clippings Murray had given her.

Wyatt nodded. “Five weeks ago. She went missing after a hike up to Logan falls.”

“Do you have the approximate times that each of these people went missing?”

Wyatt pulled a photocopy from someone’s handwritten notes out of the folder and handed it to her. “It’s always sixty three days apart.”

Jonathan pointed at the list, “Or 126 days. No one was taken in December.”

“Right,” Wyatt said. “We’re not sure if no one was taken, or if no one reported the absence. Some of the people living up in those mountains don’t contact the outside world much.”

“Or just no one was out hiking during the winter,” Steve pointed out. “So there was no one to take.”

Nancy nodded. It was a good point. 

“We’d like to speak to friends and family members, if at all possible,” Nancy told Wyatt. “And I’m thinking we should be as close to the site of these vanishings as possible. Are there any motels up in this area?”

“Not really,” Wyatt told them. “There’s a couple motels down in the valley. There’s an overpriced lodge twenty minutes outside of town.” He gave a sharp breath and said, “Oh, there is a bed and breakfast in Logan proper. I’m not sure how many rooms they have…”

The Sheriff looked over them like he was trying to figure out which two of them were the couple and which was the third wheel. 

Nancy told him, "Oh, we don't need much space. We'll check it out. If all else fails, Steve can sleep on the floor."

"I've heard that sleeping on the floor is good for your back," Steve said, rolling with Nancy's suggestion like she knew he would. 

Moving past the topic before Sheriff Wyatt could think too hard about it, Nancy asked, "Do you have anyone in particular we should talk to first?"

He frowned for a moment, then said, "Why don't you start with my daughter, Morgan?" He wrote something on a pad of legal paper and ripped off the sheet, handing it to Nancy. "That's her mother's address, and a few directions on how to get there. I'll call ahead so she's expecting you."

"Thank you, Sheriff," Nancy said, standing up and shaking his hand. "We really appreciate this opportunity."

He shrugged. "More of an unsolvable riddle than an opportunity," he insisted, shaking Steve's hand, then Jonathan's. "But in either case, good luck."

"Thank you."

~*~

As they left the Sheriff's office and got back in the car, Jonathan told the others, "He's sincere about all of this. And, like, worried and confused."

"I think _we_ confused him," Steve said with a little laugh. "I'm gonna sleep on the floor, huh?"

"If it gets us out of paying for a room we don't need, then yes," Nancy told them as Steve pulled into traffic and headed toward the house where they were supposed to meet Morgan.

The drive wasn't far, and Jonathan spent most of it looking out the window, observing. Although the surrounding area looked really different from Springfield, or even Hawkins, the town itself wasn't that different from either of the places Jonathan had lived before college. There were the same sorts of stores and the same sorts of houses, and the same sorts of apartment buildings. Somehow, Jonathan expected it to be more different this far away from home.

The house they found at the address given was small, but well kept. The girl who answered the door was about their age, Jonathan thought. Maybe a little younger. He couldn't remember how old Miles Lyton was when he disappeared, but he was sure Nancy knew. 

"Why don't you walk us through what happened that day?" Nancy asked, her pen at the ready.

Reaching around his shield, Jonathan followed Morgan's emotions closely. The mention of Miles filled her with sadness, and a hint of guilt. Jonathan figured it was probably his job to figure out whether the guilt meant she was responsible for his death, or just felt guilty for still being alive, even though Miles apparently wasn't.

"It was a bright Sunday last October," Morgan said. "Pretty warm yet. Miles and I went out into the woods, for a place to…" Ah, there was the source of the guilt. "A place to be alone."

Wandering around the room, looking at and touching things, because heaven forbid he actually sit still for more than two minutes, Steve asked, "Was it a place you'd gone before? Like, was it familiar to you guys?"

Suddenly annoyed when Steve knocked a portrait off-kilter, Morgan replied, "Yeah. We went out there most every week since the beginning of summer."

Steve righted the picture and asked, "So it was familiar territory. Not like he got lost or anything?"

Morgan shook her head, and her grief had this layer of confusion to it. Jonathan remembered feeling similarly when Will had gone missing. Jonathan's brother had made the ride between Mike's house and theirs hundreds of times. How could he have gotten lost? Well, it turned out that Will _hadn't_ gotten lost on his way home that night in November. He’d gotten lost when he desperately tried to get away from the demogorgon and flipped himself into the Upside Down.

And neither had Miles Lyton gotten lost, Jonathan was pretty sure. Something else had happened to him.

"So, what were you doing when he disappeared?" Nancy asked.

"We were just walking," Morgan said. "The trail narrows at that point, so he was a few yards ahead of me. And it wasn't like I looked away, or anything. He was–" She took a sharp breath and covered her face, her grief so painful that Jonathan winced, too.

"It's okay," Nancy told her. "We've…" She looked over at Jonathan. "We've lost people, too. We know what it's like."

Her grief dulled by curiosity, Morgan asked, "Who did you lose?"

"My best friend," Nancy admitted, reaching out to put her hand over Morgan's. "I felt responsible for her death for a long time. She was only…" Nancy gave a sad smile, and Jonathan couldn't help but reach over and put his hand on her shoulder. "She was only taken because I ditched her to go be with my boyfriend." Jonathan caught a spike of sadness and guilt from Steve, standing behind them.

Morgan nodded and gave Nancy a little smile. "Miles was talking about getting his SAT scores back. He was mid-sentence and I had my eyes on him. Then it was like he just stepped through an invisible doorway or something. His voice cut out so suddenly." She shook her head and wiped a tear away from her face. "I tried to follow, but when I got up to where he had been, there was nothing."

"No doorway?" Nancy asked. "No... _goo_ or anything, right?"

"Goo?" Morgan asked, genuinely confused by the question. Jonathan knew what Nancy was talking about. It was that stuff that clung to her when he pulled her back through the hole in the tree, back from the Upside Down.

"Nevermind," Nancy insisted, sharing a look with Jonathan. In a careful voice, Nancy asked Morgan, "Would you be willing to take us up to the spot Miles disappeared?"

Jonathan felt Morgan's hesitance, even though it didn't show on her face. Digging beneath the hesitance was fear. Gently, he told Morgan, "I know going back there is going to be hard, but it could help us figure out what happened to Miles."

"I still have school this week," she said with a deep sigh, and Jonathan suddenly remembered that college ended for the summer a couple weeks before most public high schools did. "But I could maybe take you up there on Saturday?"

"That sounds perfect," Nancy told her. "Here, give me your number. When we find out where we're staying, I'll call and tell you how to contact us."

Morgan nodded and took Nancy's pen, jotting down her number quickly. As she handed the pen back, she said, "I hope you can figure out what happened to him. He was supposed to…" She bit her lip for a second. "He wanted to be a doctor. I think he would have been good at it."

Nancy nodded. "We'll do our best."

Leaving Morgan's house, Jonathan followed the others to the car, consciously pushing Morgan back outside his shield. 

~*~

Steve drove from Salem up into the mountains to the east, following the two-lane highway as it climbed this way and that up in elevation. Jonathan sat beside Steve, leaving Nancy to spread her papers and notes around the back seat. She muttered to herself a little bit, and it was cute.

God, Steve hoped they could find an okay sleeping arrangement up here somewhere. He was done with sneaking around and moving halfway through the night so no one realized where he was actually sleeping. 

About halfway through the hour-long drive, Jonathan looked at his watch and said, "Oh. I'm supposed to call home, and it's starting to get late."

Steve reached over and turned the radio off-station.

A minute later, Jonathan switched it back over to the tape deck, saying, "Will says everyone is fine."

Steve mumbled, "That's good," and kept driving. He wanted to say that checking in _every_ day was kind of overkill. They'd been away at college the whole school year. Sometimes they'd even gone a whole week between calls home to the Byers house.

He understood, though. Their family wasn't exactly normal. And so much shit had happened to them that wondering about everyone's safety could get debilitating if they let it get too big and overwhelming. Checking in with each other helped keep those fears small and manageable. 

Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, Steve put the other on Jonathan's seat, palm-up. Jonathan smiled and covered Steve's hand with his own. Steve had to let go a few times when the switchbacks up the mountain became too difficult to navigate with just one hand on the wheel, but each time he returned his hand to Jonathan's and it felt nice.

At the signpost welcoming them into Logan, Jonathan let go of Steve's hand and didn't put it back. "Sorry," he said. "There's about to be too many people around to get away with that any longer."

Steve sighed, "Yeah, I know."

"Hey," Nancy said from the back. "There's the bed and breakfast the sheriff told us about."

"Let's check it out," Steve said, pulling into the driveway, and then into a spot in the little parking lot next to the house. "I've never stayed in one of these before."

"Yeah, me neither," Nancy said, getting out of the car.

Steve and Jonathan followed her up the stairs toward the large, old fashioned house. It was painted a warm white color and had a large porch at the front door. The porch came complete with a swinging bench and two chairs flanking a wooden checkers board. The wooden steps up onto the porch creaked when Steve stepped on them, and he wondered if the house was old enough to be haunted.

He expected Nancy to stop and knock on the door, but she went right on in. As he followed, he saw the sign on the heavy door asked customers to do just that. The front door opened into a foyer that was impressively bigger than the one at his mom's house. There was a little, dark-wooden reception desk there, and a middle-aged woman sat behind it. She was knitting and watching a TV that sat on a small table near the doorway. When they came in, the woman set down her knitting, muted the TV, and said, "Welcome to the Logan Valley Inn. I'm Mary Ann. Do you have a reservation?"

Shaking her head, Nancy said, "No, but we're doing some work here in town for the Marion County Sheriff's office. We'll probably be here for awhile, and would rather not have to commute all the way from Bridgeport if we don't have to. I don't suppose you have any openings?"

"Well, it is a weekday, and it's just after Memorial Day, so we do have a few rooms open for the next week. Two of the rooms have queen beds, and the third has a pair of twins." She looked at the three of them. "How would you like to split up?"

Here it goes. The lying. The sneaking around. Steve sighed.

"How much are the rooms?" Nancy asked, looking over her shoulder at Steve. He got ready to offer to sleep on the floor if he needed to. 

Mary Ann said, "The queens are $40 a night, and the room with the twins is $25." She gave them a bright smile. 

Nancy made a disappointed tsk sound and shook her head. "We can only afford one room. Sorry. I guess we'll have to backtrack to that motel we saw off the highway."

"Wait," Mary Ann said, giving the three of them another look. "You said you're working for the sheriff?" 

Steve nodded at her, and so did the others.

"How long will you be working in town?"

"At least a few weeks," Jonathan told her. "And maybe all summer."

She seemed to light up at this information. "I have a room in the back house – in my house – that might work for you. It's not really a guest room, but it has a queen bed and enough room for an extra cot." She shrugged one of her shoulders. "I usually rent it out to Candy Spencer's son when he comes back to town for the summer, but word is he got a job up in Portland this year."

"How much is it?" Nancy asked her.

"Seventy-five a week, breakfast here in the dining room is included, of course."

Before Nancy could accept, Jonathan said, "Sixty-five a week, and we'll pay each week upfront. Breakfast still included."

Steve wasn't sure he'd ever seen Jonathan bargain like this. At least, not outside the bedroom. It was kind of hot. Really hot. 

The lady gave Jonathan a look that was both surprised and respectful, and Steve felt proud on Jonathan's behalf. She said, "At that price, you'll have to clean up after yourselves."

"Deal," Nancy said, sticking her hand over the counter.

Mary Ann shook it.

"Come on, let me show you around."

~*~

"What are your names?" Mary Ann asked as she walked them back through the bed and breakfast and out the kitchen door.

Nancy introduced herself first, then Jonathan and Steve, following Mary Ann down the paved pathway between the bed and breakfast and the place where they would be staying. The "back house" as Mary Ann called it, was smaller than the "main house," but not by a whole lot. It was simpler than the main house, painted a cheery yellow color with white trim. When they went inside, it had more of a lived-in quality than the main house, and Nancy got the impression that Mary Ann had lived here for a long time. Maybe she had purchased the house next door with the express purpose of turning it into a bed and breakfast. Maybe she hadn't. It was hard to say at this point.

"Where are you from?" Mary Ann asked after showing them the kitchen (okay for them to use as long as they cleaned up after themselves) and leading the way upstairs.

"Indiana," she told Mary Ann, specifically not mentioning Hawkins. After that report on _Cutting Edge_ it was a gamble whether or not mentioning Hawkins would lead to a million questions about living in a town from hell. "But we go to school in Chicago."

"College kids from Chicago," Mary Ann said, stopping outside the first door on the left. "Whatever could have possessed the Sheriff to hire you from so far away?"

"We have a special skill set," Nancy replied, leaving it at that. When Mary Ann opened the door to the room and went in, turning on the light, Nancy followed her.

It was a decent-sized room, with a closet next to the door, a big window seat, a four-poster bed, and a dresser. There _was_ enough room for a cot between the foot of the bed and the dresser, but there wouldn't be much space to squeeze around it. Nancy figured that would be okay. They'd probably put the cot up against the wall, since they wouldn't be using it. "This looks great," she told Mary Ann. "Thank you."

Mary Ann nodded. "I've got that cot in the attic. If you boys wouldn't mind helping me get it down?"

"Sure," Steve offered, and then he and Jonathan followed her back out of the room. Nancy noticed that the bedroom door had an extra lock in it, the keys hanging from the lock. Perfect. She already had too many notes and files to keep track of in the car. Having a space here that she could lock without worrying about cleaning staff running across them made her feel a little better. 

The others came back, and like Nancy figured, the cot just barely fit in the room. Mary Ann took the plastic wrapping off the cot and asked, "You're sure you're going to be okay in here? All three of you?" Turning to Nancy in particular, Mary Ann said, "I could ask Charlie if she wants a roommate for the summer."

"Charlie?" Nancy asked, and Mary Anne nodded.

"She's a little older than you folks, I think. Works across the street at Ed's. She's been renting a room with me for, oh, I don't know. Two years at least." Heading to the door across the hall, Mary Ann knocked on it. "Charlie? Are you in?"

There was no answer.

"Ah, I'm sure she's at work," Mary Ann said.

"Don't worry about it," Nancy told her. "I'm perfectly comfortable sharing a room with these guys. Especially, you know, with the cot," she pointed to it, as if that would convince Mary Ann they _weren't_ all shacking up together. 

Mary Ann nodded, and then got new linens for the cot while Nancy and the others brought their things in from the car. When they were done, Mary Ann said, "I only have one set of keys. If you need others, there’s a hardware store here in town where you can get them copied. Just make sure I get all the copies back when you leave.”

"We will," Nancy promised, taking the keys from Mary Ann and handing them to Steve, who put them on the ring with his car keys. 

After unpacking and organizing a bit, Nancy's stomach started to rumble. It turned out that Ed's was a bar and grill, so Nancy and the boys went there for dinner.

A young woman with close-cropped brown hair and a name tag that said, "Charlie," came up to the table. With a surly tone, she asked, "What do you want?"

Nancy was put off by her tone, but Steve gave her a friendly smile and said, "Charlie? Hey, I think we're your new neighbors, over at Mary Ann's house."

Confusion and surprise replaced the grumpiness in her expression. "I thought…" she said, before shaking her head. "Whatever. Are you gonna eat, or what?"

"What's good here?" Steve asked, obviously still trying to charm her. 

Nancy figured it was probably a lost cause, but she always saw the value in keeping on good terms with one's neighbors. The year she'd just spent sharing a dorm room with Beth Alder was just the example that proved the rule. Nancy wasn't sure she'd ever get that stain out of her sweater at this point. 

"The burgers are decent," Charlie told them with a shrug.

"Burgers all around," Steve told her. "Hold the onions for this guy," he said, pointing to Jonathan. "Extra pickles for the lady."

Her eyebrows raised, Charlie turned to Nancy, who just rolled her eyes and nodded. It's what she would have ordered, anyway. She told Charlie, "I'll have water to drink." The boys ordered sodas and Charlie left. 

Leaning toward Jonathan, Nancy said sarcastically, "I'm _so_ looking forward to living in the same house as her."

"There's something…" Jonathan said, then he shook his head.

"What?" Steve asked from across the table. "Let me guess. She's not as angry as she appears to be?"

"No, she is," Jonathan said, closing his eyes and pressing his fists into them. "I probably just need some sleep."

Steve looked around the room, and asked, "I wonder if we should be asking any of these people about it? They probably live around here for the most part."

"It's getting late," Nancy told him. "As much as I want to jump right in, I think we'll have better luck catching people willing to talk in the middle of the day."

Steve shrugged. "Maybe."

They chatted about the errands they would have to run the next day – getting keys copied, buying groceries, getting the rest of their money wired in from Murray – until Charlie came back with the food. 

"Hey," Steve said, smiling at her again. "Do you know anything about the people who have gone missing around here?"

Charlie narrowed her eyes at him, which looked like it surprised Steve. But really, what did he expect, asking the grumpiest person in the place? 

"What, are you guys some sort of weird crime tourists or something?"

"No," Nancy insisted, shooting Steve a dirty look so maybe he would listen to her next time. "The sheriff hired us to check it out. Do some digging, maybe get a little further than his department has been able to so far."

Charlie gave Nancy a long look, before eventually saying, "All I know is that three weeks from Sunday, the only people up in the woods are going to be out-of-towners who don't know any better."

Nancy had already done the calculation. That was the day another disappearance was likely to occur. She gave Charlie a nod. "Okay. Thank you, Charlie."

She held her tray a little closer to her chest and said, "You know my name, but I don't know yours."

"Nancy Wheeler," she said, offering her hand, which Charlie frowned at for a second before taking it and shaking.

"Charlie Everly."

"Steve Harrington," Steve said, shaking her hand too. "That's Jonathan Byers." Steve waited for Charlie to finish shaking hands before asking her, "Do you have any friends who might know more about the disappearances?"

"I don't have _friends_ ," she insisted, almost like it was a point of pride with her. "But Ash Franklin is kind of obsessed with the topic. You might want to ask him."

"Thanks," Nancy told her, meeting Charlie's eyes so she would know Nancy was being sincere. "We really appreciate it."

Charlie nodded, a little awkwardly, and walked away. As she went, Nancy pulled the little notebook she kept in her purse, and wrote down, "Ash Franklin."

Jonathan said softly, "She reminds me of someone."

"Yeah," Steve replied, talking with his mouth full as he chewed. "She looks a little like Mom on a really bad day."

Looking over at Charlie again, Nancy couldn't help but laugh softly at Steve's comparison. "Oh my god, she does! I wonder if your mom has any family out here?"

"I doubt she'd know if she did," Jonathan told them, picking at his food. "She never talks about any of her aunts or uncles or cousins, or anything. If they exist at all, I don't think she knew them."

Thinking about her dad's boring sisters and her mom's catty one, Nancy said, "Maybe it's better that way."

"Yeah," Jonathan agreed, picking up his burger. "Maybe."


	5. Initial Theories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve meet with Ash Franklin, a man obsessed with the disappearances.

Jonathan woke up with his forehead pressed against the back of Steve's neck, their fingers entwined next to Steve's heart. When Jonathan lifted his head, he saw Nancy asleep on her back, her head turned away from them, but her knuckles brushing against theirs. The room was a little chilly, compared to the night before, but the bare skin of Steve's back was warm and comfortable. Nancy must have been getting cold all the way over there, though.

The clock on the other side of the bed said it was still early, so Jonathan got his hand untangled from Steve's, and he reached down and grabbed another blanket from the foot of the bed. He pulled it up over all of them. Nancy stirred a little, looking first at the blanket, then over at Jonathan. She smiled at him sleepily and pulled the blanket up under her chin before closing her eyes again. 

Jonathan settled back down as well, but after a few minutes, it was pretty clear that he wasn't falling back asleep. He pushed his face further down behind Steve's back, blocking out as much light as he could, and let his mind drift. Across the hall, Charlie was still asleep. Mary Ann wasn't in her room anymore, but over in the "main house," likely either serving breakfast, or getting it ready. Jonathan couldn't remember when breakfast was supposed to start. Or end for that matter.

Casting further out, Jonathan checked in at home. El and Will were both at school. El gave him a distracted greeting, but she had a test or something, so Jonathan moved on. Jenny was with Hopper, watching Sesame Street and practicing her letters while he went over his files. She said out loud, "Jonathan says hi," before sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and focusing hard on tracing the Q in her workbook. 

Jonathan gave her a little bit of a hug, and he heard it when Hop said, "Tell him Murray wants them to call."

"I got it, thanks," Jonathan told Jenny, giving her hair a playful little tug, and then finding his mom. Joyce was always harder to reach, not as bright as any of the others, and she couldn't hear him, either. Still, it made Jonathan feel better to check in on her. She was at work, some office job that Jonathan still didn't know too much about, talking and laughing with one of her coworkers.

Pulling back, Jonathan felt a little bite of pain in his head, and then he realized he was probably bleeding on Mary Ann's guest room sheets. 

_Shit._

He sat up, trying to tilt his head back so the blood wouldn't drip. Luckily, there was a box of tissues next to the bed. Jonathan hadn't pushed himself very hard at all, so it didn't take long to stop bleeding. When he looked down at the bed, he realized that he'd bled on Steve, but not on the bed.

He laughed a little to himself. That could have been worse. 

Taking another tissue from the box, Jonathan cleaned off Steve's back. It made him stir and start to wake up, but it was a little later now anyway, so Jonathan didn't feel too bad about it. He tossed the tissues at the wastebasket in the corner and turned back to Steve. 

Feeling like he wanted some attention, Jonathan kissed Steve's shoulder and then tugged on him until he rolled onto his back. Jonathan leaned over Steve and asked, “Are you awake?”

“No,” Steve said, keeping his eyes closed, the corner of his lip curving upward in a soft smile.

Jonathan laughed and kissed him. He got a few kisses from Steve before Nancy made a small sound beside them. Looking over, Jonathan saw that she still had her eyes closed. She whimpered again, and Jonathan thought it had to be another bad dream. Except, there was no fear this time…

Smiling broadly, Jonathan whispered in Steve's ear, "She's having a sex dream."

"Really?" Steve asked, returning Jonathan's smile.

Jonathan nodded. Then he got out from under the blankets and went around to Nancy's side, slipping out of his boxers as he went. He crawled back into bed next to Nancy, having just enough room to balance on the edge of the bed and kiss her neck.

Steve slid his arms under her and gently pulled her toward the middle of the bed, giving Jonathan more room. Then he kissed Nancy on the lips. She whimpered again.

"Nan-cy," Steve said in sing-song voice. "Wake up, baby."

Jonathan pressed against Nancy's right side, kissing her neck again and slipping his hand up under the hem of her shirt, pushing his fingers up the center of her chest. "C'mon, Nance," he said. "You don't have to dream about it. We're right here."

Nancy took a sharp breath, waking up. She tilted her chin up and grabbed onto Jonathan's head, pulling him closer. "Oh!"

"Shh," Steve told her, his fingers bumping against Jonathan's as he pushed Nancy's shirt up. "Jonathan says you were having an interesting dream."

"Mmm," Nancy said, lifting up enough so Steve could take her shirt. Jonathan caressed her breast, lightly rubbing her nipple with his thumb and feeling the way it made her desire skyrocket. 

"What was your dream about?" Jonathan asked her, kissing back when she grabbed his head and licked her way into his mouth.

Giggling softly, she said, "Tom Cruise and Emilio Estevez." 

Jonathan laughed, hiding his face in Nancy's neck when she turned to kiss Steve. 

"Sorry, babe," Steve told her between kisses. "All you've got is us."

"I suppose you'll do," Nancy said, reaching and pulling Jonathan closer behind her. He moved his hand from her breast down into her panties, touching gently and finding her already soaking. "Oh, god. Jonathan, please!"

"Hey, you got my name right, at least," he said, making Nancy giggle again, and getting a sharp laugh out of Steve. As Steve got Nancy's panties off, Jonathan pulled her hips closer to his and told her, "I'm just warning you, if you start calling me Emilio, I'm gonna fuck Steve instead."

She laughed again, but groaned when he pressed into her. "Jonathan, oh!"

Jonathan closed his eyes and lost himself in it, feeling Nancy around him, feeling the way Nancy's emotions reacted to the way he moved, feeling the way Steve touched his face, and his hands on Nancy's hips. At some point, Steve pushed them so Nancy was on her back, and Jonathan was fucking up into her, chasing that feeling she wanted so desperately. Steve got between their legs, holding Nancy as still as he could and putting his mouth on her. 

Nancy cried out, and Jonathan winced. "No, you gotta be quiet, baby," he hissed, and she slapped her hand over her mouth.

When Nancy started coming, Steve's tongue licked up the base of Jonathan's cock, and that's all it took and he was coming too, biting his lip so he wouldn't make the noises he desperately wanted to make. Breathing hard, Jonathan slipped out of Nancy, but he held her close. He wrapped his arms around her arms and buried his nose in her neck and held her while Steve continued to lap and suck at her. 

"Jesus, Steve," she hissed, groaning and wiggling in Jonathan's arms. A few minutes later, she gasped loudly when Steve did something, and then she was clapping her hand over her mouth again and holding back a scream. Nancy's pleasure made Jonathan gasp too, and his oversensitive cock started to get hard again.

Without letting her come down from her orgasm, Steve moved up, pressing his cock into her and kissing Jonathan's arm as he made his first big thrust. Jonathan held Nancy close with one arm and put the other up on the headboard, helping hold her still so Steve could fuck her harder. 

"How does she feel, baby?" Jonathan asked him in a soft whisper, pressing a kiss to Nancy's jaw. "Nice and wet? Open?"

"Fuck, yeah," Steve insisted, speeding up. "God, so wet!"

"How about you, Nance?" Jonathan asked, letting himself rub against her butt cheek and back a little. "Is this what you wanted? What you dreamed about? Getting fucked like this?"

Shaking her head, Nancy gasped again and said, "No, this is– this is better! Oh, shit. Steve!"

A minute later, Nancy trembled and came again, digging her nails into Jonathan's wrist. The pain, mixed with feeling Nancy's and Steve's pleasure, made Jonathan feel like maybe he was getting close to coming again too. He shuffled his hips around until his cock was nestled between Nancy's butt cheeks and his belly. Oh, the pressure and the little bit of friction felt so good.

"Keep going, baby," Jonathan told Steve. "Keep, ah, come on. I need... Nance, can you come again?"

"Yeah," she nodded, craning her neck until she got her mouth close enough to Jonathan's to kiss him. "Touch me," she whispered against Jonathan's lips, before licking into his mouth and sucking on his tongue.

He let go of the headboard and reached down between her and Steve, finding her clit and stroking it furiously until Nancy was coming again, and Steve was coming, and ohhhhhh.

Jonathan came again, grinding against Nancy's back, and holding onto Steve's arm, unable to breathe because it just felt so...damn...good!

"Fuuuuuck," he groaned softly, trying to catch his breath. Closing his eyes, Jonathan mumbled, "That's it. I'm done for today. See you guys tomorrow. Goodnight."

Steve snickered, leaning over and kissing Jonathan. "Who wants to shower first?"

"Not it," Jonathan insisted, his eyes too heavy to open.

"I'll go," Nancy told them, climbing off of Jonathan and out of bed. "I'm, like, covered in come. Thanks, guys."

"You're welcome, babe," Steve said with another laugh. After a little shuffling around, the door opened and closed again, Steve said, "Hey, okay if I clean you up a little?"

Jonathan nodded. He expected tissues or a pair of underwear or a shirt or something. Instead, he got Steve's hot tongue licking his stomach. "You're so weird," Jonathan told him, putting a hand on the back of Steve's head. "I love you."

"Love you too, babe," Steve said, licking Jonathan a few more times before he was satisfied. "I can't believe we got you to come twice. That _never_ happens."

Jonathan shrugged, accepting it when Steve pulled him into his arms. "First time for everything."

Steve laughed against Jonathan's neck. He picked up Jonathan's arm and waved it around a little, and there was no resistance on Jonathan's part. "Look at you. You're fucked out! You can't even open your eyes. You're come-drunk!" He laughed again, running Jonathan's hand into his face.

"Fuck you, Steve," Jonathan said, but he didn't fight back or pull away or anything. He smiled instead. 

"Next time you can get it up, I promise," Steve told him, putting Jonathan's arm down and brushing his fingers back through Jonathan's hair. He kissed Jonathan, first on the lips, and then on his cheek, and his eye, and his forehead. "I barely got to touch you at all this morning."

"We can try to make some one-on-one time happen for each of us soon," Jonathan told him. "It’s probably a good idea.”

“Mmhmm,” Steve agreed, pressing another kiss on Jonathan’s jaw before rubbing it with his fingers. “You need to shave.”

“So do you,” Jonathan told him, opening his eyes just far enough to aim correctly when he cupped Steve’s face in his hand and brushed his thumb over the stubble on Steve’s upper lip. “Unless you’re _trying_ to grow a mustache like Hop.”

Steve laughed and kissed Jonathan’s palm. “I don’t think _anyone_ can grow a mustache like that man.”

Jonathan laughed too. 

~*~

Steve followed Nancy and Jonathan over to the main house for breakfast. After waking up the way they had that morning, he had to keep reminding himself not to touch them outside their room. He thought if he got his fill before they had to face the outside world, he’d be good, but spending twenty minutes just holding and rubbing and kissing and smelling Jonathan while Nancy was in the shower and getting dressed only made him more hungry for it. 

He stuffed one of Mary Ann’s homemade blueberry muffins into his mouth instead of reaching out and touching one of the others. The only other people in the dining room besides the three of them were a couple, maybe ten or fifteen years older than them. They kept to themselves, which Steve appreciated.

Halfway through eating, while Steve was trying to decide whether his coffee needed a fourth creamer or not, Jonathan said, “Oh, I visited home this morning. Hop told Jenny that Murray wants us to call him.”

“Oh, okay,” Nancy said, like it was completely normal to get messages from their boss via telepathic seven-year-old. Well, he supposed in their lives it _was_. “I was going to call him from the bank, anyway.”

A few hours later, Murray had been filled in on their progress so far, the rest of their upfront money was promised for the next day, and Jenny’s postcard had been mailed. A call to Ash Franklin had been fruitful, and they met him in a cafe at the other end of town from Ed’s (a whole five blocks away), called Blue Spoon Eatery.

Ash turned out to be a middle-aged man with curly blonde hair he kept under a PepsiCola hat, and loud taste in shirts. He found them right away after entering the cafe, hurrying over and asking, “You’re the kids the sheriff sent over?”

Nancy stood up to greet him, sticking out her hand. “Nancy Wheeler. These are my associates, Steve and Jonathan. It’s nice to meet you.”

As Ash sat down next to him, Steve mouthed across the table at Jonathan, “Associates?”

Jonathan smiled and shook his head, tapping Steve’s ankle with his foot.

“I brought everything I’ve ever collected about the phenomenon,” Ash said, putting a thick binder on the table. “I’ve got timelines, victim profiles, possible theories. What do you want to look at first?”

“The timeline,” Nancy insisted. “When was the first reported disappearance?”

“Well, the mountains can be a little treacherous,” Art told them. “So there’s always been a few disappeared hikers here and there. The first one I’ve been able to pinpoint as definitely not being due to other factors is Kent Michaelson, who went missing on January 8th, 1984.”

Jonathan choked on the glass of milk he was drinking, spilling some of it on the table. “Sorry!” he said, taking the napkin Steve handed him and wiping up the spill. “Sorry, please keep going.”

“Do you have the location he went missing from?” Nancy asked. Steve gave Jonathan a questioning look.

“Yes,” Ash replied, paging through his binder. 

Jonathan pressed his lips together before taking a pad of paper out of his bag and a pen. He jotted down something quickly, but waited until Ash said, “Yeah, here’s the map. He went missing somewhere on this stretch of trail,” to pass the pad of paper over. 

As Nancy looked at the map, Steve read Jonathan’s note. 

_1/8/84 was the first time Nancy and I had sex._

Steve grinned. He remembered that day. They’d been hanging out at Jonathan’s house. Steve had taken Jonathan’s fingers and shown him how to make Nancy come. Then she’d jumped Jonathan and rode his cock until he came, Steve making out with him the whole time. 

Steve gestured for Jonathan to hand him the pen, and he wrote back.

_I can’t believe you remember the exact date. Do you remember the date for ours?_

Steve gave Jonathan the notepad back and tried to pay attention to the map Ash was showing Nancy.

“His wife said he was out running his dog,” Ash said. “The dog came home, but Kent didn’t.”

Steve knew how that felt, when your loved one wasn’t at home like he was supposed to be. When something awful happened to him and you had to pray to a god you didn’t even believe in, begging that you would get him back.

Jonathan smiled at him sadly and pressed his ankle to Steve’s. Then he wrote something else on the notepad and showed it to Steve. 

_4/29/84_

Steve rolled his eyes and shook his head, but he was also smiling. Of course Jonathan remembered. Of course he did. 

Jonathan flipped to the next page of his notebook and turned his attention to Ash’s description of the next person who went missing.

When they were all done, Nancy looked up at Ash and said, “Sixteen people? All vanished without a trace? I only had twelve on my list from the sheriff.”

“Sheriff doesn’t count a few of these. Jack Perry was a Native American, so the Sheriff left his disappearance in the jurisdiction of reservation police, even though he was known to frequent the woods here around Logan. There’s a few others like that. People no one the sheriff cares about misses.”

“That’s fucked up,” Steve insisted. “Everyone deserves to have someone who will miss them when they’re gone.”

“Everyone deserves to have someone out there looking for them,” Nancy added. To Ash, she said, “Thank you. This is so great. You’ve really been so much help.”

“I want to get to the bottom of this as much as anyone else,” Ash insisted. “I used to love going out in those woods. Almost every day, you’d find me out there. Not anymore.”

“Not even on the days where it seems unlikely anyone will go missing?” Jonathan asked.

Sadly, Ash shook his head. “If you guys can figure out what’s going on, hell, I’ll add on to that reward money of yours.”

“Oh, I’m not sure you need to do that,” Nancy assured him. “But what would be useful is if you could put us in contact with anyone who was there when a disappearance happened. The more first-hand accounts we can get, the better we’ll understand what’s been happening.”

Nancy wrote something down on one of her blank notebook pages, before handing it to Ash. “Here’s the phone number where we can be reached.”

“Thanks, Miss Wheeler.” He tipped his mug back, swallowing the last of it. “And thanks for the coffee.”

“Oh, it’s our pleasure,” Nancy assured him. “We’ll be in touch.”

After he left, Steve asked, “So what do we think?”

“He’s got some promising leads,” Nancy said, looking at the map she’d traced. “I kind of want to go up there today. Get a feel for the area before Saturday.”

“What if it’s an axe murderer or something?” Steve asked. “Or a cannibal. He gets hungry every two months…”

“Gross,” Nancy insisted with a shudder. “I’ll make sure to bring my gun. And we’ll stick together.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not an axe murderer,” Jonathan said. “The way Morgan described what happened to her boyfriend? She believed it so thoroughly. So either she hallucinated, or…”

“Or he really disappeared into thin air,” Nancy finished for him. Looking over at Jonathan’s notepad, Nancy asked, “What were you guys doing earlier? Passing notes?”

Jonathan flipped back a couple pages and showed Nancy the note he passed to Steve. Her cheeks went pink. “Oh.”

She flipped the notebook closed and slid it back to Jonathan with a smile. “You’re too sweet.”

Again, Steve got that longing feeling, like he needed to touch Nancy, to cuddle her under his arm and run his fingers through her hair and kiss her silly. Leaning forward, Steve kept his voice low as he said, “Or, we can go hiking tomorrow, when we’ll have more time, and we can spend the rest of today in bed.”

Nancy’s smile grew a little broader, but before she could respond, a woman approached their table. “You the ones looking for the folks who disappeared?”

“Uh, yeah,” Steve replied, gesturing her to the empty seat beside him. “Do you know anything about what’s been going on?”

She shook her head, her short, salt-and-pepper locks bouncing around her face. Taking the seat Steve offered her, she whispered, "The Devil took them, and for good reason, too!"

"The–the Devil?" Steve asked skeptically, sharing a look with Nancy and then Jonathan. "Like, the guy with the horns? Or is it a nickname for, you know, a real person?"

"The Devil is real!" she insisted. "And he stalks the forests outside Logan."

Nancy cleared her throat, giving Steve another look, before leaning toward the woman and asking, "What makes you say the people taken deserved it? What did they do?"

Keeping her voice low, the woman said, "Marcy Baker disappeared in July of '85. It was only two days after she stole my casserole dish from the Crossroads Evangelical Friday potluck."

When Steve raised his eyebrow at Nancy, asking if she wanted him to get rid of the crazy lady, Nancy gave a subtle shake of her head towards him, and said, "Uh-huh. What about the other fifteen people who have gone missing? What capital offenses have they committed?"

"Well, I'm not sure," she said. "Though most of the people around here are guilty of fornication and the like," she looked around with a sneer. 

Steve couldn't help but nudge Jonathan's leg under the table, even though he made sure not to look over at Jonathan. Steve didn't care what the crazy church lady thought of his relationship with Jonathan. What he did care about was if she had any bigger, stronger, crazy friends who might decide to stick their noses in where they didn't belong and start a fight. 

"We'll look into your theory, Ms…?" Nancy said, looking to the woman expectantly.

" _Mrs._ ," she insisted. "Fanny Sanford."

"Mrs. Sanford. Thank you for letting us know. Now, if you'll please excuse us, we have some sites to investigate," Nancy stood up and gestured for Mrs. Sanford to do the same.

Nodding, Mrs. Sanford stood up, giving Steve a little bit of a dirty look before telling Nancy, "Be on the lookout for pentagrams and other signs of the beast!"

"Oh, we will," Steve assured her, scooting to the outer part of the booth seat and waiting for her to move on. Once she did, Steve asked Nancy, "So, we're really going out into those woods this afternoon?"

"It's light out for another eight hours at least," Nancy insisted, picking up the check and taking it to the register up front. Steve let Jonathan follow her first, before he brought up the rear. 

One of the older guys at the counter nodded at them, and then said, "What's the matter with you boys? Letting the lady pay?"

Steve held up his hands and told the guy, "Hey, _she's_ the one in charge. We work for _her_."

That seemed to confuse him well enough that he backed off long enough for them to pay and get out of there. As they walked back in the direction of the house, Jonathan shook his head and muttered, "And I thought the assholes in Hawkins were bad."

"They'll get over themselves," Nancy insisted. "And even if they don't, we won't be here very long."

"Yeah, if we can actually figure out what's going on," Steve pointed out. "So far our theories include what? The devil? Some sort of weird Upside Down crap?"

Suddenly he realized that Jonathan wasn't walking with them anymore. He stopped and turned to find Jonathan five paces back, frowning and looking off into space like he was trying to figure something out.

"What is it?" Nancy asked him, going back to Jonathan. "Did you sense something?"

Steve rejoined them as Jonathan shook his head. "No. I just… The first time someone went missing? Was it that day in January? The 8th?"

"January, uh…" Nancy said, pulling her notebook out of her bag and flipping through it. "Yeah. January 8th, 1984. Kent Michaelson disappeared."

"What was sixty-three days before January 8th, 1984?" Jonathan asked her.

Steve watched Nancy's eyes go wide. "Oh my god," she breathed, looking over at Steve. "Shit!"

"What?" Steve asked, following when the two of them started outright jogging back to the house. "What, goddamn it?"

"It can't be that, right?" Nancy asked Jonathan. "Not this far away from Hawkins."

"What else would it be? If it's the same day?"

"The same day as _what_?" Steve cried, getting in front of them and physically stopping them from moving one more step further until he had his answer. "What are you guys talking about?"

Nancy gulped a little, catching her breath before she told him, "Nine weeks before January 8th was right around November 6th. The day Will went missing."

"The day El opened the gate. The day Will flipped himself into the Upside Down and got stuck," Jonathan said in a whisper just loud enough for the two of them to hear. "And ever since then, every 63 days someone _here_ has mysteriously gone missing."

"It can't be a coincidence," Nancy insisted. 

Looking around at the not-empty street, Steve motioned for Nancy and Jonathan to follow him across the street and down a few more blocks until they were closed in their room at the house. "What are you guys thinking? Somehow a demogorgon got all the way over here?"

"I don't think anyone truly understands the physics behind what El did," Nancy said, tapping on her chin as she thought. "What if El tearing open the gate in Hawkins opened other gates around the world? Places where the universe is _thin_ or something?"

"Then why did the Russians have to come to Hawkins to make their machine work?" Steve asked her, noticing only after the fact the way he rubbed at the side of his neck when he thought about the Russian base under Starcourt. "Why couldn't they find one of these other thin spots somewhere else?"

"Maybe the only other thin spot is here, for some reason," Jonathan said. "We all saw how that demogorgon was able to push its way through thin spots."

Steve shuddered and said sarcastically, "Thanks for the reminder, babe."

"But why every 63 days?" Nancy asked, shaking her head. "Back in '83, the demogorgon took someone almost every day between when El opened the gate and when she killed it a week later."

"And it was eating other animals," Jonathan said. "No one said anything about animals going missing."

"So, what's the verdict?" Steve asked them. "Am I making a new bat before we go out in those woods, or what?"

"It didn't hunt during the day," Nancy told Jonathan. "Do you think you could tell if it had been around if we go right now?"

"I–" Jonathan looked at Steve, then back at Nancy. "I don't know."

"Can you ask El?" Steve suggested.

Jonathan nodded. “Find me something to block the light.”


	6. The Pattern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The three investigators gather more information about the disappearances, and about their new housemate.

Jonathan didn’t have a radio to make static in their room at Mary Ann’s, so he took the dark scarf Nancy had packed for him into the bathroom. Of course, Nancy and Steve piled in after him. 

Jonathan had Nancy start the shower, then he tied the scarf around his eyes and dropped Inbetween. El was busy on the phone with Mike, but Will was sitting on his bed, drawing something. 

_Hey, can I talk to you?_

Will closed his eyes and joined Jonathan in the Inbetween. “What’s going on?” he said.

Jonathan stopped short, suddenly realizing, “You cut your hair.” It was a lot shorter than it used to be, and kind of gelled or something on top.

Will rolled his eyes, but he also blushed a little. “You came to talk about my hair?”

“No,” Jonathan said with a laugh. “God, it makes you look older.”

“More like I’m actually sixteen, instead of twelve?” He gave an expression that was so very Mom that Jonathan had to laugh again.

“Sure,” he said with a nod. “But I’m here because I need to ask you something. If it’s too hard, let me know, okay?”

“Okay,” Will said, nodding slowly.

“Can you show me what it feels like to be nearby a demogorgon?” Jonathan asked, and the surprised look on Will’s face was entirely expected. “Something has been taking people out here. I just want to be sure I don’t miss it. If it is one.”

Will nodded again. He took a deep breath. “Yeah, I can show you.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Will held his hand out to Jonathan, and Jonathan took it. 

Quick-as-a-flash, Will shared memories with Jonathan. Most of them were memories of the Upside Down, of running and hiding. One of the memories was somewhere Jonathan had never seen before. Will was holding El’s hand, and through it he could feel a demogorgon. It felt like a slick, muddy, sharp cold feeling. 

It felt wrong. 

“Yeah, it does feel really wrong,” Will told him, taking his hand back. “Evil.”

“Okay, thanks,” Jonathan insisted. “I’m not convinced it’s a demogorgon here, but if I feel anything like this, I’ll know to stay away.”

“And call us in, huh?” Will insisted. “We’re almost done with school for the summer.”

“Two weeks left?”

“Yeah,” Will grinned. “El and I are gonna drive to Hawkins after school gets out on the last day.”

“Wheelers putting you up again?”

Will nodded with a grin. 

“Hey, let me know when you’re there. I want to make sure I can still reach you.”

“It’s not that much farther away,” Will insisted. “I’ve been looking into it. Apparently the more times you practice something, the stronger the neural pathways get. This,” he said, grabbing Jonathan’s hand and squeezing it, “is something we’ve done so often, the distance doesn’t really matter anymore.”

“It’s much more comfortable than it used to be, for sure,” Jonathan agreed, thinking of that first time he’d forced himself into the Inbetween so he could call El for help. “You and El must connect like breathing at this point.”

“Just about,” Will agreed. He looked away, then back at Jonathan. “Mom’s calling me for dinner.”

“Give her a hug for me?”

“Sure,” Will nodded, pulling Jonathan into a hug. “Be careful, okay?”

“I will be,” Jonathan insisted. “I promise.”

Breaking out of the Inbetween, Jonathan took a deeper breath and pulled the blindfold from his eyes. The bright afternoon light coming in the bathroom window was a little painful, but Jonathan breathed through it as the pain faded. 

“I got it,” he told the others, taking the wad of toilet paper Steve handed him and wiping the blood from under his nose as Nancy turned off the shower. “Will cut his hair.”

Nancy smiled at Jonathan and gave him her hand. She helped Jonathan to his feet, saying, “One of the trails is fairly close to town. Let me put on the right shoes and we’ll head out.”

“No way I can convince you to put it off until tomorrow, is there?” Steve asked as Nancy opened the bathroom door and led the way out.

“Nope,” she said, stopping short and saying, “Oh!” 

Steve ran into Nancy, making her stumble a little, and Jonathan made sure they were solid before looking around the doorway at what had stopped them.

Charlie stood there in the hallway, key in the lock on her door, one eyebrow raised. “Were you _all_ in the bathroom at the same time?”

“We had a scientific experiment to run,” Nancy told her. “Part of the investigative process.”

Deeply skeptical, but also a little amused, Charlie nodded. “With the shower running. Sure.” She shook her head and walked away, saying over her shoulder, “See you later.”

“Bye!” Steve called after her. 

Following Nancy back into their room, Jonathan asked her, “A science experiment?”

“It was the only thing I could think of, okay?” Nancy replied, taking a pair of socks out of her suitcase and putting them on. “Let’s check out these woods.”

“I know you said we should go to the closest site,” Jonathan said, making sure he still had all his things before they left the room. “But I kind of want to go to the most recent one. I feel like I might sense something more there, than at the older ones.”

“Sure,” Nancy said as they went down the stairs and out to the car. “I’ve got a copy of Ash’s map, and this street map of the area we bought at the gas station.” She nodded to Steve. “Honey, you driving? I’ll navigate?”

“Sure, babe.”

Jonathan caught sight of Charlie across the road, smoking just outside Ed’s, probably her last one before starting work for the afternoon. He kind of wished he could read minds, like Jenny could, because then he wouldn’t have to guess what the confusing mishmash of emotions swirling around in Charlie’s head might mean.

It took twenty minutes to drive to the trailhead, and another fifteen before Nancy held up her map and said, “Okay. Alexis Breckinridge disappeared from somewhere around here six weeks ago.”

Jonathan took a few more steps further down the trail, trying to sense anyone or anything that might be around. He didn’t get anything that felt like what Will had shown him of a demogorgon. But after a few more steps, he did start to feel _something_.

“I think it was here,” he told the others, walking around the spot a few times so he could gauge how big it was. “It feels … weird.”

“Like a demogorgon?” Steve asked, his hands on his hips and a frown on his face as he watched Jonathan pace around.

“No,” Jonathan insisted. “More like…” He closed his eyes and tried to come up with the right words to describe the feeling. “Like–like, god, it’s on the tip of my tongue.”

“Like something having to do with El?” Nancy asked. 

Jonathan shook his head. “Like that feeling you get when there’s been a storm and you can smell the ozone.”

“Electricity?” Steve asked.

“More like the _memory_ of electricity,” Jonathan looked up at them. “Which doesn’t make any sense, I realize. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Nancy insisted, looking at the map. “We still have a few more hours of light. Let’s look for the next one back. Kirby Serizawa, back in February. It’s about a mile north of here, on a different trail.”

“Lead the way,” Jonathan told her, following when Nancy went back down the trail the way they’d come. 

Steve walked beside him, brushing his hand against Jonathan’s as they walked. “No demogorgon feelings, though, right?”

“Not so far,” Jonathan assured him. 

Steve nodded and slipped his hand into Jonathan’s. “I really wish that cop hadn’t taken my bat away. I feel like we could use it right about now.”

Jonathan squeezed Steve’s hand. “I know what you mean.”

~*~

Back at the house, Jonathan and Steve made dinner while Nancy poured over the map. “There’s got to be something here,” she told the boys, ignoring the way her stomach growled at the smell of the food they were making (well, Jonathan was making, Steve was mostly just assisting and cleaning up after Jonathan). “Some sort of pattern that we’re not seeing.”

Steve came up behind Nancy, digging his fingers into the sore spots behind her shoulders. “Was everybody taken at the same time of day?” he asked, working his fingers up the back of Nancy’s neck.

Nancy groaned a little because his fingers felt amazing, and shook her head. “No one was taken before eleven in the morning, or after around 5:30. That we know of.”

“Can you write the times on the map?” he asked, taking the plates Jonathan handed him and setting them out around the table.

“Some of the times are really broad,” she told him. “Like with Jack Perry. He went missing sometime that day.” Still, it wasn’t a bad idea. “We have the best idea for timing with Miles Lyton, because Morgan saw him go.” Nancy flipped through her notes, and when she saw she hadn’t written down a time, she went through the file Sheriff Wyatt had given her. 

There it was 3:46 pm. Nancy wrote the time along with Miles’ initials and the date of his disappearance next to the location she’d marked on the map. She got two more times written down before the food was ready. With a sigh at being interrupted, Nancy folded up the map and stashed it back in her bag with the rest of her files.

“Thanks for dinner,” she said, leaning over to kiss Jonathan.

He was about to respond, but then he looked up and two seconds later, Charlie came through the kitchen door. She stopped short, again like she was not expecting to see them there, and said, “Oh, hey. I just…” She pointed across the road. “Lunch break.”

“Oh, do you need me to wash the pans or anything?” Steve asked, standing up and taking a step toward the sink. 

“Nah, I was just gonna…” She pointed to the fridge, “Have a sandwich.”

“Did you want some of what we’re having?” Jonathan asked. “I made plenty extra.”

Charlie looked into the big pot on the stove and asked, “What _is_ this? Some sort of chili?”

Nancy thought it was cute the way Jonathan got bashful and looked down. “No, it’s… Well, my mom always called it goulash, but it’s like the bastardized Midwest version.”

“It’s really good,” Steve insisted, sitting back down at the table and taking a bite. “Better than Mom’s even.”

“Well, yeah,” Jonathan said. “Mom doesn’t exactly pay attention in the kitchen.”

“Ohhh,” Charlie said loudly, drawing everyone’s attention. “You two are _brothers_. I’ve been trying to figure it out since last night.” She laughed a little. “Brothers.”

Nancy could see how uncomfortable Steve and Jonathan both were at the comparison. But honestly, what did they expect, both referring to the same woman as “Mom”?

“Not exactly,” Jonathan said with a wince.

As Charlie took a scoop of Jonathan’s goulash and put it on a plate, Steve explained, “We’re more like...best friends. Jonathan’s mom pretty much adopted me.” He shrugged and took another bite. “I got into the habit of calling her Mom when I lived with them.”

“Okaaay. Weird,” Charlie said, sitting down at the table and gingerly taking a bite. A second later she made a pleased sound and took another bite. 

Nancy started in on her own food, taking two bites before she realized how thirsty she was. “Jonathan, can you get me a glass of water?”

“Sure,” he said, standing and taking a glass from the cupboard. “You want ice?”

Thinking about how warm it was in the kitchen, and after hiking around in the woods all day, Nancy said, “Yes, please.”

Jonathan opened the freezer, and then said, “Shit.”

“What, no ice?” Steve asked him. 

“It’s fine without it,” Nancy assured him. 

“No, it’s…” Jonathan stepped back, waving Steve over. “Maybe you should get the ice.”

“Really, it’s not a big deal,” Nancy insisted as Steve got out of his chair. 

When he got to the freezer, Steve sighed and pulled a bottle out, showing it to Nancy. It looked like liquor. Then he asked Jonathan, “Is this going to be a problem?”

“I don’t know,” Jonathan said, looking up at Steve and then over at Nancy. 

Charlie said with her mouth full, “Oh, that’s mine. You guys want some?”

“No,” Nancy said at the same time as Steve. 

Jonathan went a little red, before saying, “No, it’s not a problem. Just put it back, Steve. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?” Steve asked, making Jonathan huff and glare at him.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Charlie gave Nancy a questioning look. “What’s that all about?”

Shaking her head, Nancy told Charlie, “Don’t worry about it.” She didn't want to get into Jonathan's alcohol problem with a stranger. That was for him to decide who got to know and who didn't.

Charlie shrugged and kept eating her food. Steve put a glass of water – with ice – down in front of Nancy before returning to his dinner. Beside Nancy, Jonathan sat down and sighed before starting to eat as well.

“So, Charlie,” Steve said, breaking the silence that had fallen over the dinner table. “Where are you from?”

Charlie swallowed a bite before saying, “Here.”

“Logan?” Nancy asked in clarification.

Charlie nodded and scoffed, “Good old Logan.”

“I take it you’d rather be somewhere else?” Nancy asked.

Shrugging, Charlie said, “Other places probably suck just as bad. At least I know what I’ve got to deal with here.”

Nancy couldn’t figure out how to respond to _that_ , but Jonathan spoke up, saying, “I suppose we all take our problems with us, wherever we go.”

“That’s deep, man,” Charlie said, before shoveling the last few bites of goulash into her mouth. “Gotta head back to work. Thanks for the food.”

And then she put her dishes in the sink and left, the kitchen screen door banging shut behind her.

"You know," Steve said, his voice low so only Nancy and Jonathan would be able to hear him, "I'm pretty sure I know why she doesn't have any friends."

Nancy stifled a laugh and focused on her food. She was almost done eating when Jonathan said, "Hey, do you have a picture of the last person who disappeared? Alexis something?"

"Sure," Nancy said, digging in her bag for the right paper-clipped packet of papers. "Alexis Breckinridge," she told him, pulling a newspaper photo out from behind the paperclip and giving it to him. "She was seventeen. Her family is all the way up in Portland."

"We should probably go talk to them one of these days," Steve said, watching Jonathan look at the picture. "What? You think you can find her like El does?"

Jonathan shook his head. "Actually, I was thinking we might want to send some pictures home. Just to see if El can find any of them. At least then we'd know if we were looking for live people or for bodies."

"It's a good idea," Nancy told him, putting her hand over Jonathan's. "As long as she doesn't mind doing it."

"We might have to wait until after finals are over," Jonathan said. "But, no. I don't think she'll mind."

"She likes helping," Steve added, just before taking another bite. 

“We should find the library too,” Nancy said, making a note to this effect in her notebook, adding the words, “To do,” in the top margin. “Maybe there’s some local history we can dig into. Plus they should have a copier we can use to make the pictures we’ll send to El.”

“You guys have fun with that,” Steve said, gathering up the dishes and putting them in the sink, which he stoppered and started filling with water.

“What are _you_ gonna do?" Jonathan asked him. 

Steve shrugged. "I don't know. Hang out. Make friends with the locals, maybe? See if friendly conversation gets us any farther than the interrogations you two run."

"Interrogations?" Nancy asked with a laugh. "That's not what we do!"

Jonathan grinned at her.

"What?" she asked.

"That's _totally_ what you do," Jonathan said, holding up his hands when Nancy pretended to hit him. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. You get answers. Sometimes."

"You can be a little intense, babe," Steve told her, up to his elbows in soapy water. "But that's one of the great things about you. I like intense."

"Me too," Jonathan said, leaning over to kiss Nancy on the cheek. 

Nancy warmed at the kiss, and at the sweet tone in Jonathan's voice. And she supposed Steve was right. She could be intense. But how could people know the things she knew and _not_ be intense about them? Smiling a little, Nancy asked them, "I'm not too bossy, am I? Or too much the boss? Paying for your coffee earlier?”

“No,” Steve said with a laugh. “That guy was just an asshole.”

His voice in a low whisper, Jonathan murmured, "Besides, Steve _really_ likes bossy.”

“Mm, I know,” Nancy whispered back, giving Steve a considering look. She wondered if that was something he wanted tonight. She’d keep a close eye out and decide later. Kissing Jonathan, she told him, “I want to finish making those additions to the map.”

“I’ll help,” he offered, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear with a smile.

Nancy’s heart swelled with love for him, and she just had to kiss Jonathan once more before she could focus on the map.

Steve was done with the dishes by the time Nancy and Jonathan finished putting the rest of the times on the map. “There!” Nancy said as she wrote the last one. “We’re missing information for a few, but this is what we have.”

Joining them at the table, but standing over it, Steve said, “Huh.”

“Huh, what?” Nancy asked, also standing up and tilting her head, trying to see what Steve was seeing. As she looked at the places and the times, they looked really random to her. “What do you see?”

“Do you have a pencil?” Steve asked, taking the one Jonathan handed him. His tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth, he connected the points with a series of concentric curves. The points on each curve had similar times written next to them, and each curve appeared to have the same center point. “That,” Steve said, pointing to the map. “The earlier ones all happen farther out, and the later ones closer in.”

“Closer in to what?” Jonathan asked.

Nancy looked at the drawing and took the pencil, estimating the shared center point for each of the arcs Steve had drawn. “To that,” Nancy said, making an X at that point.

“I guess I know what we’re doing tomorrow,” Steve said, looking at the map. He squinted at it a little, then held it out farther for a second, before pointing at something and asking Nancy, “What trail does that say?”

“Iron River Trail,” Nancy told him with a frown. “Do you need reading glasses?”

“What? No,” Steve insisted. “It’s just tiny print. And the letters are almost the same color as the background. I don’t need glasses. I’m _not_ a nerd.”

Putting a hand on her hip, Nancy pointed out, “Says the man who figured out the pattern Sheriff Wyatt and Ash Franklin and who knows how many other people couldn’t figure out.”

“No!” Steve insisted. “That’s not…I mean, it just reminded me of basketball plays, alright?”

“Hey,” Nancy said, stepping closer to Steve and putting her arms around him. She looked up and said, “I love you, no matter how nerdy you get.”

Steve laughed a little and rolled his eyes. “I love you too.”

“C’mon,” Jonathan said, folding up the map and holding it out to Nancy. In a sing-song sort of voice, Jonathan added, “I think somebody earned a sticker on his chart.”

“Would you shut the fuck up about the damn sticker chart?” Steve cried, but he was smiling, and he laughed as he chased Jonathan out of the kitchen and up the stairs to their room. Nancy shook her head, gathered up her things, and followed them.


	7. Cedarville

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve discover an abandoned village in the forest.

“Yeah, it should be somewhere around here,” Steve said, squinting at the map again. Damn. Maybe he did need glasses. He showed the map to Nancy, “Right?”

Nancy looked at it. “I think maybe one more bend around the trail?”

Nodding, Jonathan said, “Okay. Let me go first. Just in case.”

“In case of what?” Steve asked as he and Nancy followed Jonathan down the trail. “Monsters? Nancy’s the only one with a weapon.”

“It’s the middle of the day, so there aren’t going to be any monsters,” Jonathan insisted, but he walked off the side of the trail and picked up a vaguely bat-sized fallen branch. “Here, if it’ll make you feel better.”

Steve took the branch and hefted it in his hands. “Bad grip, but yeah. I do feel a little better.”

“We’ll get you a better one when we go to Portland to talk to Alexis Breckinridge’s parents next week,” Nancy assured him.

"Plus, I've got the…" Jonathan gestured vaguely at his head. Steve wasn't sure if Jonathan meant that he could tell if there was a monster nearby, or if he meant that he could fight things with his mind now. Steve had honestly forgotten about that. He hadn't really seen Jonathan use his newer abilities much in the past six months. He seemed more comfortable sticking to reading people's emotions. Mostly sticking to reading Steve and Nancy's emotions, but he wouldn't put it past Jonathan to use it to his advantage at school too.

Steve followed after Jonathan and Nancy, noting the ways these woods were definitely different than the woods behind his mom's house. There were a lot more pine trees, for one. A carpet of dead pine needles covered the trail under his feet, making his steps unnaturally soft.

It made Steve realize that he probably wouldn't hear footsteps coming up behind him very well. Suddenly paranoid, Steve turned around, scanning the forest behind them. At least these woods were thinner than the ones he'd grown up next to. In summer, at least. They were probably about the same in winter.

Steve was still mostly focused on keeping watch behind them when he heard Jonathan say, "Whoa."

Turning, Steve hurried a few steps to catch up with him and Nancy, "What?"

"There's a house," Jonathan said, cutting off the main trail and through the underbrush. 

Steve was about to ask if he wasn't concerned that someone might get pissed about them trespassing when he saw the house too. It looked utterly abandoned, with half the roof caved in and several of the windows broken. Steve heard the shutter of Jonathan's camera click a few times.

Nancy called from a few yards away. "There's another old house over here."

Steve went over to her, looking over her shoulder through a broken window. The house was a tiny little cabin, and it looked completely bare. "I wonder when they moved out."

"I wonder _why_ they moved out," Nancy replied, ignoring his hiss of disapproval when she went to the door and pushed it open. "Aw, it's kind of cute."

"Yeah, for someplace haunted," Steve insisted, hovering in the doorway until Jonathan joined them.

Jonathan took a sharp breath as he crossed the threshold, lowering his camera.

"What is it?" Nancy asked, reaching for Jonathan.

"I think this is the central place," he told them. "It feels really weird."

"Weird how?" Steve asked him, hefting the branch in his hand as he looked through a doorway and finding an ancient bathroom. "Monster weird?"

"No," Jonathan insisted, taking another picture. "Did anyone disappear from around here?"

Nancy shook her head. "Not that we know of. There were a few people that we don't have much information about. This could have been one of the disappearance sites."

"This looks like it's been abandoned longer than three years," Steve insisted, poking at the trunk of a tree growing up through one of the holes in the roof. "More like twenty. Or _fifty_."

Stepping back out of the cabin, Nancy took a look at her map. "There's nothing marked out this far, but…" She pointed to a gap in the trees. "That looks like it used to be a road."

"Well, let's see where it goes," Steve said, walking past her. He got a few yards before he realized Jonathan wasn't following. "Yo!" he called out. "Jonathan! You still okay in there?"

Jonathan stepped into the doorway, holding his head. "I don't know how much farther I can go today," he said.

"Okay," Nancy said, sharing a worried look with Steve. "Okay. We can go back to the car."

As Steve got close to them, he took Jonathan's hand in his and asked, "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Jonathan said. "That place…" Shaking his head, he told them, "I think someone was really scared in there. Maybe more than one person." 

"See," Steve said to Nancy ask he pulled Jonathan back toward the trail. "More evidence for my cannibal theory."

"People can get scared for all sorts of reasons," Nancy insisted. "Did you see any bones in there? Any blood? _That_ would have been evidence."

"I've never felt anything like that before," Jonathan said, letting Nancy take his other hand as they reached the wider, maintained trail. "Emotion detached from the person who felt it." He shivered. "So weird."

"I told you it’s _haunted_. And besides, if you ask me, being able to know other people's emotions is pretty weird to begin with," Steve insisted, raising his eyebrows at Jonathan and making him laugh a little.

~*~

"Hi," Nancy said, giving the librarian behind the desk a bright smile. "I was wondering if you have any materials regarding the history of the area?"

The librarian perked up, her eyebrows jumping up above the rims of her large glasses. "What sort of time period are you interested in?" she asked, standing up from behind her desk and heading for the card catalog. "We have a lot about the early settlement days. The gold rush…"

"Actually, I'm probably looking for more recent history," Nancy told her. "The last fifty to seventy-five years. I'm not exactly sure."

"Okay." The librarian nodded. "We do have a few things. Small-run local histories from independent printing presses. Things like that."

"Great," Nancy said, noticing Steve and Jonathan loitering over by the fiction stacks, flirting with each other. Nancy doubted anyone else would see it as flirting, if they didn't already know Steve and Jonathan were together. It probably just looked like two friends whispering and joking together. No one else noticed the way they held themselves a very careful distance apart. No one else noticed the way they would momentarily sway closer to each other before catching themselves and stepping back apart. 

As the librarian wrote down a few numbers from the catalog, Nancy figured it might be a good idea to ask about the houses they'd found that morning. Unfolding a copy of the map they hadn't marked up yet, Nancy pointed to the area where they'd found the "center point" of the activity. "Do you know what's out this way? To the Northeast of town?"

"Oh, that's Cedarville," the librarian said, moving over to a different drawer of cards and flipping through them. "I think we have a book about it. It was a town built by one of the logging companies. When the state declared this area a protected forest, the company moved on and the town folded." She frowned at the cards as she flipped through them. "Here. We do have a book about Cedarville. Here’s the number,” she said, writing it down on the same slip of paper. “Do you need help finding these in the stacks?”

“Oh, no thanks,” Nancy said, taking the slip of paper the librarian handed her. “This will do. Thank you so much.”

“Good luck with your project!” she said as she headed back toward the reference desk.

Nancy found the first few books fairly easily, and she was looking for the one about Cedarville when Jonathan caught up with her. "Hey."

"Hey," Nancy said, finding the book and pulling it off the shelf. Showing it to Jonathan, she said, "This is the place we ran across this morning, according to the librarian."

"The History of Cedarville," Jonathan read, taking the book from Nancy. Then, his voice softer, he said, "By N. Marek."

He had a strange look on his face, so Nancy asked him, "What is it?"

"It's just…" Jonathan pointed to the author's name, "That's Mom's maiden name."

"Marek?" Nancy asked, thinking it was most likely a coincidence. It didn't seem like an uncommon name.

Jonathan nodded, opening the book.

Nancy asked him, “Are you still thinking your mom might have family out here?”

“I don’t know,” he said, turning the first pages. "Even if she did, this book is pretty old. It says it was published in '65. What are the chances this person still lives around here?”

"Does it say anything about the author?" Nancy asked him, watching as Jonathan flipped through the book. Looking around, she asked, "Did Steve go somewhere?"

"He's walking over to the Blue Spoon," Jonathan told her, stopping on the acknowledgements page. "He said we could go meet him when we're done."

"Okay," Nancy said, pulling the book a little closer so she could read the acknowledgements. "For my family, who I love more than life itself." She shrugged. "That's a little generic. Doesn’t tell us much about the author.”

"Nice, though," Jonathan said, handing Nancy the book. "I guess we start reading?"

Nodding, Nancy said, "Yeah. Let's find a table."

~*~

The thing about sitting around in the Blue Spoon diner, eating pie and waiting for someone to come talk to him was that Steve got bored ten minutes in. He kept thinking of things he wanted to talk about, and then realizing Jonathan _wasn't_ sitting right next to him. Nancy wasn't either. He felt pathetic again. Just like being unable to spend the night by himself and crashing at Nancy's parents' place, he felt unable to just sit here by himself for more than ten minutes.

It wasn't normal, or even all that healthy. Steve knew this. 

He also knew it had been going on longer than he'd been dating Nancy and Jonathan. Before them, Steve had pushed his company on anyone willing to tolerate it. The whole reason he had ever been friends with Tommy and Carol in the first place was that he'd been one of the only people so desperate for friends that he tolerated how mean they were, as long as they let him keep hanging out with them. Steve had been friends with Tommy since grade school, just sort of following him around from making fun of one loser to making fun of another. At least if they were making fun of other people, Tommy wouldn't notice how desperate Steve was for someone, _anyone_ to pay attention to him, and start making fun of him for it.

Steve was glad he had better friends now, friends who let him be himself and didn't use their affection as leverage to dare him into doing stupid things he wasn't comfortable with. Or goad him into acting on his worst impulses, instead of his best ones.

So yeah, everything was great, except Steve couldn't sit by himself without missing the people he'd literally spent almost every second with since his last final a week ago.

Pathetic.

Steve had almost finished his coffee and was looking around the diner, seeing if there was anyone he should try talking to, when someone sat down next to him. "Hey."

Looking over, Steve saw a guy, probably a few years older than him, wearing loose jeans and a flannel shirt, even though it was almost June and warm out. "Uh, hey. What's up?"

The guy stuck his hand out. "Ronny Vance. Word around town is that you're trying to find the people who've gone missing."

"Yeah," Steve said, shaking the guy's hand. "I'm Steve Harrington."

"How's it going?" he asked, waving at the waiter behind the counter, who brought him a soda.

"We're just getting started," Steve insisted with a shrug. "Got any ideas where we should be looking?"

Shaking his head, Ronny said, "Nah. We've been all over these woods looking, after every time someone goes missing." He shook his head. "My Uncle Floyd was one of the early ones. I guess at this point, everyone just assumes he's dead."

"But you don't?" Steve asked him, watching as Ronny shrugged.

When he spoke again, it was in a low voice, "Joe Coombs said something to me once. I don't remember exactly what, but it made me think he might know what had happened to Floyd. I tried to tell my dad, but it wasn't anything bad or mean that Joe said. Dad's been working at Joe's shop for fifteen years, and I don't think he wanted me bringing it up and rocking the boat."

"What kind of shop?" Steve asked, wishing he would have thought to bring a notebook and a pen, like the ones Jonathan and Nancy had been carrying around with them. There he goes, not being at all independent again.

"Mechanic shop," Ronny told him. "Pretty much the only one around here until you get down to Bridgeport. He's run it forever."

Frowning, Steve asked, "So you don't think Joe could have had something to do with Floyd's disappearance?"

Ronny shook his head, "Oh, god no. He's a good man. I just … I got the feeling he was telling me something he wasn't supposed to. Like, trying to make me feel better, but telling me too much. I tried to ask him about it again, like a year ago, but he said he had no idea what I was talking about."

"Okay," Steve said, nodding as he thought through what it would take to get the information out of this Joe Coombs guy. Nancy and Jonathan could probably figure out something. "Yeah, we'll definitely check up on that."

"Cool," Ronny nodded his head a few times and took a drink of his soda. "I mean, good luck and all. The sheriff was telling us two years ago that he was sure he'd break the case soon. Still waitin’ on that break.”

"Did you tell the thing about Joe to the sheriff?" Steve asked, earning a wide-eyed look from Ronny.

His voice low, but urgent, Ronny replied, "Hell no! I didn't want to get him in trouble."

Steve couldn't help but hide a chuckle behind his mug of coffee. "And somehow telling me about it is better?"

"Well, yeah," Ronny said, accepting the BLT and fries the waiter placed in front of him and picking up the sandwich. "You guys are just college kids. How much damage could it do?"

Steve wanted to tell Ronny about his younger sister and the damage she was capable of causing, especially when she had their brother helping her. He settled for saying, "I guess you and I know different sorts of kids."

Ronny gave Steve a surprised sort of look, before laughing, like it was a joke. Steve laughed along with him, because he was trying to make friends with the locals, not scare them off. Not really. He nudged Ronny with his elbow, saying, "Hey, if you know of anyone else who wants to say something, send them our way, huh? We're renting a room from Mary Ann Seymour. They can find us there."

"I'll ask around," Ronny said with a nod, tucking into his lunch.

Steve finished off his pie and his coffee, gave Ronny a friendly wave, and left the diner, headed for the library. He had to find a pen and write down the name Joe Coombs before he forgot it.

~*~

"It was right up here," Morgan said as she led them up the trail. Jonathan followed her as best he could, but he found himself getting out of breath. The trail was a difficult climb, and Jonathan had to hand it to Morgan, and her boyfriend Miles, for doing this hike every weekend just to have some time alone together.

Then he remembered he'd climbed a ladder into his boyfriend's bedroom almost every night for a whole school year, so maybe he wasn't one to judge about the lengths teenagers would go to for some time alone with the people they loved. Jonathan passed Morgan on the cut-stone steps of the trail, catching his breath before asking, "Right here?"

Morgan nodded.

Jonathan took another step up and he felt it. Electricity zapped across his skin as he passed the point, making him shiver. He looked around a little bit, coming to the conclusion, "There's no way he just dropped out of sight. There's just the trail and trees. If he fell, he would have fallen back toward you."

"Yeah," Morgan said, putting her hands on her hips and looking around. "I couldn't figure it out either. How did he just disappear into thin air?"

Nancy gave Jonathan a look, and he nodded at her when Morgan's back was turned. This was just like the other sites they'd visited. _Something_ weird had happened here. 

Jonathan shivered again.

Morgan frowned at him and asked, "What was that?"

"What was what?" Jonathan lied, turning and taking a few more steps up the trail. 

Nancy got Morgan's attention, asking her, "Do you know where we are on this map? Exactly?"

As Nancy and Morgan looked at the map, Steve came up and stopped next to Jonathan. He leaned close, his hand on Jonathan's shoulder, and asked in a soft voice, "This is just like the other places, isn't it?"

Jonathan nodded.

"Any, I don't know, _lingering_ emotions? Like at that cabin?" Steve asked. “Ghosts?”

"No," Jonathan told him. "All I can feel is you guys. And El's kind of in the back of my head, but I think she and Will are doing a job."

Sneering, Steve said, "I hate that they still work for that asshole after what he did to us. To _you_."

"Yeah, I know," Jonathan replied, having to fight the urge to hug Steve and make him feel better. "But El says she and Will are getting better at reading Owens. Better at figuring out his motives. So he won't be able to get anything by them again."

Steve rolled his eyes and sighed. "I just don't want anyone else to get hurt."

"I know that too,” Jonathan said, stopping himself from taking Steve’s hand to hold it. “But the work they do, it helps people.”

Steve nodded and looked up the trail, a spike of sadness flowing through him.

"What is it?" Jonathan asked.

Shrugging, Steve turned and looked back at Morgan and Nancy. "What are we doing here, Jonathan? Are we helping people? What if we can't figure it out? What if Morgan's boyfriend and everyone else got disintegrated or something? Or even worse, got sent to the Upside Down? What if they're all dead?"

Jonathan sighed and put a hand on Steve's shoulder. "Then at least they'll know. Remember how much better Nancy got after Barb's funeral?"

"Yeah," Steve admitted, looking down the trail at her. "But what if it is the Upside Down? We can’t tell them about that shit. We're going to have to come up with some lie that's going to make all these people feel better."

"Murray will help." Jonathan reluctantly let go of Steve's shoulder. "Like he did last time."

"Yeah." Steve looked around again. "Let's get out of here, huh? These woods are starting to give me the creeps."

They parted ways with Morgan at the trailhead, promising to update her dad as soon as they went over everything with Murray. "We've got to get back," Nancy said, taking the keys from Steve and getting in the driver's seat. "Murray's expecting to hear from us in an hour."

Back at the house, it was late afternoon on a Saturday, so Mary Ann was busy with her bed and breakfast guests, and Charlie was working. They had the back house to themselves. At the appointed hour, Nancy dialed Murray's number. Jonathan listened as she said hello and started laying out the facts. 

"On November 6th, 1983, Eleven opened a gate to the Upside Down," Nancy began, frowning when Murray said something to her. "Yes, it's important. Listen. That happened on November 6th. Sixty-three days later, and almost every sixty-three days since, someone in this area has vanished. We've visited as many disappearance sites as we could, and Jonathan says they all feel weird." She listened for a moment, rolled her eyes, and then handed the phone to Jonathan.

"Hello?"

"What do you mean they 'feel weird'?" Murray demanded. 

"I don't know," Jonathan told him, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. "They feel wrong. Energized somehow. And then there's the center point."

"Center point?"

"Yeah," Jonathan told him. "We mapped all the disappearance sites, and Steve noticed a pattern connecting the time of each disappearance with how far it is away from a central point. It's an abandoned house in Cedarville, an old ghost town. And _something_ definitely happened there. I just have no idea what. Or when."

"Have you been digging into the history of this ghost town?" Murray asked, and that's when Jonathan decided to pass the phone back to Nancy.

"He wants to know what we found out about Cedarville."

Nancy took the phone, leaving Jonathan to turn toward Steve as he listened. Steve must have needed contact, because he reached over and put his hand on the table in front of Jonathan, palm-up and looking at him expectantly. Jonathan put his hand in Steve's and held it as Nancy said, "I found a book at the local library. There were a few major families who ran the town. Miller's Logging was the company primarily responsible for moving people there. It was never a very big town, housing maybe 500 people at its biggest. People started moving away during the war, and by 1965 when the book was published, there were about 100 left. I guess the others all moved out sometime after then. Right now, the property around there is mostly owned by the state, and it's considered unincorporated."

She listened for a minute before saying, “I don’t know why it’s still happening. All I’m saying is that the dates line up. That’s too weird to be a coincidence.”

Tired after all the hiking and everything, Jonathan leaned forward, putting his head down on the table. Nancy told Murray, “We’ve got appointments to talk to the rest of the family members, and someone tipped off Steve that the local mechanic might know more than he’s saying.” She paused, saying, “Yeah, yep,” as she wrote something down. “I don’t know, maybe? Do you know any engineers you wouldn’t mind read in on this whole thing?” She paused again. “My brother? You do realize he’s still in high school, right? … Until Friday, I think … He’s not going to leave town without seeing El.”

Nancy sighed and rolled her eyes. “Just let me talk to him. Maybe I can get instructions from him over the phone … Yeah. Bye.”

Lifting his head up off the table, Jonathan asked, “Why does Murray want to send your brother out here?”

“Apparently he and his friends have been working on a ‘device’ to detect the sorts of physical anomalies produced by people with powers,” Nancy shook her head. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.

She pressed the lever on the phone to get a dial tone, then dialed another number. “Hi, mom. Hey, is Mike there? I need to ask him some questions.”

Jonathan figured if Mike and his friends were involved, Will and El probably knew about it too. He wouldn’t put it past them to be involved with testing the damn device. 

“C’mon,” he said to Steve, pulling on his hand. “I want your help.”

“With what?” Steve asked, following when Jonathan led him up the stairs. 

"I want to talk to Will," Jonathan said, stopping in their room for his blindfold. Catching Steve's hand and leading him toward the bathroom, Jonathan said, "I always feel a little better about traveling when you're looking out for me."

"I'll be your guard dog, sure," Steve replied, closing the bathroom door behind them. "Whenever you want, babe."

Jonathan smiled and kissed Steve before turning to the shower and opening the taps. He sat down on the bathmat and tied the blindfold over his eyes.

Speaking to that Will-feeling in his head, Jonathan asked, _Can I talk to you_?

Will joined him in the Inbetween. "Hey. What's up?"

"Do you know about this device Mike and the others are working on?" Jonathan asked as he gave Will a hug.

"Yeah," Will said, stepping back and sitting back down on his bed. "I've been helping them design it."

"What is it supposed to do?"

Will gave Jonathan a bit of a look before admitting, "I've been studying theoretical physics."

Jonathan laughed and rolled his eyes, joining Will on the bed. "Of course you have."

"Specifically string theory," Will insisted. "Dimensions beyond the three that most people are capable of perceiving and manipulating."

"Like the Upside Down?"

Will tilted his head and shrugged a shoulder. "Kind of. I think it's the ability to see and interact with objects using the other dimensions that gives us our extra abilities." He waved his hand around. "Like this place. The Inbetween. It isn't a place in physical space, but we can use it to communicate with each other, and to make contact with other minds."

"The way you and El spy on people?"

With a nod, Will said, "Yeah. I think that this place we see is more of a–a _shorthand_ for using one of the other seven or eight dimensions to superimpose our brains and consciousnesses onto other people's brains."

Jonathan felt completely lost. "Are you saying I've put my brain in your brain somehow?"

"Kind of," Will said. He took Jonathan's hand and showed him all the thoughts he'd been having about the subject. It made a little more sense, but not by much. "I'm still trying to figure out the math to describe it. It's kind of advanced."

"Yeah, even when you figure out the math, that's not going to help me at all," Jonathan insisted, wondering how the hell Will had gotten so smart. And so tall! _Jesus_. He was almost as tall as Jonathan already. "What does all of this have to do with the device?"

"I think there's something physical that happens when one of us causes these dimensions that everyone can see to intersect in manufactured ways with other dimensions. If I'm right, we should be able to detect the disturbances using a physical device."

"Like a power detector?" Jonathan asked. 

"Exactly." Will's eyes lit up. "Whatever it is that made me able to sense the Mind Flayer, or makes you able to sense the place people disappeared from… We can detect it and–and _measure_ it. Study it."

"El has spent a lot of time running away from the people trying to study this," Jonathan pointed out.

Will rolled his eyes. "She ran away from the people who didn't even ask before forcing her to use her abilities. It's different when it's your friends who love you, and who ask for your help."

Jonathan nodded. He supposed that was true. "Do you think making measurements of the disturbances around Logan will help us figure out what's going on?"

"I don't know," Will admitted. "Maybe. When is the next event supposed to happen?"

"Three weeks from tomorrow," Jonathan told him. "How are you going to finish school, build these devices, and then get them out here all before then?"

"We already have one device built," Will insisted. "We met the others halfway last weekend to start calibrating it. Then…" He shrugged. "I suppose we could ask Dad to drive it out for us."

It was odd for Jonathan to hear Will calling Hopper "Dad," but he wasn't going to complain or anything. After all, Hopper's new identity was as El and Will's actual father. (Actually, as Jonathan's too, but that was beside the point.) In order to maintain his cover, and not help anyone connect the dots between Jim Byers and the Jim Hopper who died in the Starcourt mall fire, the kids had to call him Dad.

Jonathan wasn't sure he'd ever get used to it.

"Would you come out to run it, too?” Jonathan asked him. “That’s a lot of time in the car with Hop.”

Will laughed. “I wouldn’t mind. El would probably come too, and if she’s coming so would Mike, and it’s always pretty funny to see Mike and Dad trying not to kill each other.”

Jonathan laughed. “Okay. Let me know how it goes.”

“Later,” Will said, giving Jonathan another hug before dropping out of the Inbetween.


	8. The Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The residents of Logan are hiding something, and Nancy gives her little brother some advice.

Jonathan and Steve went together to talk to Joe Coombs, walking into his shop near the end of the business day on a Thursday. Nancy had wanted to come, of course she had, but Steve had argued against her being there, at least while they were still trying to figure the guy out.

"I honestly think you were risking your life arguing that Nancy shouldn't come with us," Jonathan said to Steve as they pulled up to the auto body shop on the edge of town. 

"She wouldn't have killed me," Steve insisted. "Bloody or maimed, sure, but not to death. She loves me too much."

Jonathan laughed. "That was a good move, though. Distracting her with the school teacher."

Shrugging, Steve said, "Thanks. I'm just… I feel a little stupid that I didn't think of it sooner. I've had a whole year of classes about the role a teacher plays in a young person's life – about the ways a teacher can be there for them when other adults aren't."

Wanting to hug Steve, but unable to in public, Jonathan nodded toward the auto body shop. "Come on. Let's get this guy figured out."

"You want me to do the talking?" Steve asked. "Or are there certain questions that'll set off your…" He gestured to Jonathan's head.

"We'll play it by ear," Jonathan insisted, getting out of the car.

Steve followed, but by the time they got to the shop door, he was the first one through it. The bell above the door rang and they didn't have too long to wait before a man with ruddy skin and white hair came in from the back. The whole shop smelled like machine grease and oil, and Jonathan couldn't help but be reminded of Lonnie.

"Hey," he said with a friendly smile. "What brings you fellows in today?

"Joe Coombs?" Jonathan asked, and the man nodded.

"Hey," Steve said, leaning on the counter in that way that made people find him endearing and nonthreatening. "I'm Steve, that's my friend Jonathan. Ronny Vance told me you might know a little something about a problem we're having."

Suddenly very wary, but sounding curious, Joe asked, "What sort of problem?" He looked through the windows at the front of the shop and asked, "The Chevy yours? That's a late model. Can't say I've had to service many of them yet, save an oil change or a flat tire here or there. What seems to be the problem?"

"Oh, the car's fine," Steve insisted, and Jonathan saw it. Coombs recognized them somehow. He'd heard they'd been asking around town, maybe? "We actually came to ask about something you said to Ronny a few years ago."

Coombs' emotions turned nervous and Jonathan found himself taking a step closer to Steve, ready to protect him if those nerves turned into a fight. Completely untruthful, Coombs voice was nonetheless perfectly friendly when he said, "I'm sorry. I'm not sure what you're talking about. I talk to Ronny all the time. His dad works here, you know."

"Specifically," Jonathan said, giving Steve a look that he hoped conveyed the seriousness of the situation, "when you implied that you knew what had happened to his Uncle Floyd."

Coomb's emotions deepened to predominantly scared. Terrified, even. Jonathan could see it a little on Coombs' face. Steve must have seen it too, because he stood up off the counter.

"I'm sorry, boys. Ronny must have been pulling your chain." Coombs shrugged, just a little too stiffly. "He's been known to play pranks on tourists before."

Steve looked to Jonathan questioningly, and Jonathan gave a subtle shake of his head, before then cocking his head toward the door.

Steve tapped his finger against the counter a few times, saying, "Oh, well. That's too bad. Thanks for your time, anyway."

"Yeah, thanks," Jonathan insisted, reading the relief Coombs felt as he and Steve left the shop.

"He's lying?" Steve asked as they got back to the car.

"Lying his ass off," Jonathan agreed. "He's afraid of something."

"Or someone," Steve added, getting into the car. "If this was really just an Upside Down thing, how would Coombs know to be afraid of it?"

"Maybe he's seen it happen," Jonathan guessed. "Like Morgan Wyatt."

"Yeah, maybe," Steve said with a sigh as he started the engine and drove away from the shop.

~*~

_We might have found one of your subjects_ , El said, rousing Jonathan from sleep. It was just barely light out the window, and it had been a late night the night before, talking through the case.

Still, this was too important a breakthrough to ignore. _Which one?_ he asked, not quite all the way to the Inbetween, but not quite totally present in his body, either. 

_Dottie Savage_ , El replied, but there was a hesitance in her voice that made Jonathan think something was wrong. 

_What is it?_

_Can you get in the bath? We need a better connection to show you this_.

_Sure_ , Jonathan said, getting out of bed and bringing a clean towel and his swim trunks into the bathroom with him. He ran the water, making it slightly above body temperature, and changed into his trunks. 

He hadn’t quite figured out how to appear clothed in the Inbetween when he wasn’t clothed in the physical world. So, swim trunks.

The bathroom curtains kept out most of the early morning light, so once the tub was full enough, he switched off the bathroom light and got in. Dropping into the Inbetween was as easy as falling these days, and Jonathan quickly found his siblings. “Hey. What’s going on?”

El and Will were similarly clad in their swimsuits, and Jonathan felt a little like they should all be on their way to a lake or something. El held up one of the photocopied pictures he’d sent her two weeks before. “Dottie Savage.”

The picture was of a young woman, a newlywed originally from Upstate New York who met her husband at a university in Virginia. They had moved out to Logan because he was looking for a quiet place to write his novels from, and he had an aunt or something in the area who they were staying with. She had been gone almost exactly a year, having disappeared in June of 1986.

“You think you found her?” Jonathan asked, taking the picture El handed him. In the picture, Dottie was wearing her wedding dress, and the photographer had managed to capture a more-or-less candid smile. “Where is she?”

“We need to show you,” Will said, taking the photograph and handing it back to El. Then he and El both took Jonathan’s hand and pulled him, bringing him with them to the steps of a little white house.

Looking around at the flat landscape, no pine trees to be seen, Jonathan asked, “Where are we?”

“Oklahoma,” Will told him, leading the way up to and through the front door. Going _through_ a closed door made Jonathan feel too much like a ghost to be comfortable with it.

Inside the house, standing in the kitchen, was an older woman. She had long white hair in a long ponytail down her back. The radio was on and she was singing along with it softly, dancing as she worked. When she turned around, her advanced age was even more apparent. Her face was deeply wrinkled and her fingers were curved and bulbous at the knuckles. 

Jonathan asked El, “Who is this?”

“Dottie Savage,” El told him, watching as a younger man came into the room and kissed her on the cheek. 

“You didn’t have to make breakfast, Ma,” he said, but he took the plate she gave him and started eating. 

Shaking his head, Jonathan told them. “No. You have the wrong person. Dottie is in her twenties. This must be her grandmother.”

“Maybe,” Will admitted. The house in Oklahoma faded around them back into the empty darkness of the Inbetween. “But this is the only one we found.”

Jonathan sighed. “Alright. Thank you for trying.”

El gave Jonathan a hug. “We’ll figure out what’s going on. I promise.”

Jonathan nodded and hugged her back. “How are the devices coming along?"

"Good," said Will, giving Jonathan a hug too. "We're heading to Hawkins right after this to help them finish up."

"Are you going to make it out here in time?" Jonathan asked as Will let go.

"We'll see," El replied, giving Will a look. "The sooner we get to Hawkins, the better. We might be working through the night."

"Okay," Jonathan said. "Talk to you later.”

Coming up out of the Inbetween, Jonathan decided not to tell the others about El and Will finding the wrong person. They still had hopes that the people who’d gone missing could be found eventually. Jonathan wasn’t even sure they’d find the bodies.

~*~

The boys were still sleeping, or pretending to sleep or something, but Nancy was hungry and she didn’t want to miss breakfast. She left them in bed and got dressed, pulling her hair up to hide how messy it was, and bringing the Cedarville book with her. She thought maybe paging through it a third time would somehow reveal something she’d missed on the first two read-throughs.

There were new occupants of the dining room this morning: a family with a son who looked about nine or ten. Nancy was halfway through her eggs when the boy came over to her table and asked, “What are you reading?”

Nancy wasn’t quite sure how to treat him. She looked over, but his parents were looking at some sort of magazine and speaking to each other. She figured it wouldn’t hurt to keep him entertained for a few minutes. “It’s a book about local history,” she told him. Lowering her voice, she said, “It’s not very exciting.”

“This whole place isn’t very exciting,” he said. “I wanted to go to Disneyland for vacation, but we had to come here instead.”

“Did you guys just get here last night?”

The boy nodded. 

Not quite sure how to keep making conversation, Nancy asked him, “Where are you from? Was it a long drive?”

“Portland,” he said. “And it was so long! I thought I was gonna _die_ still riding in the car!”

Nancy laughed. “I came here all the way from Chicago,” she told him. “It took almost three whole days to get here.”

“Wow!” he said, adorably impressed. “What’s your name?”

“Nancy,” she told him. “What’s yours?”

“Ben,” he replied. “What room are you staying in?”

Not quite sure how to respond, Nancy told him, “I’m staying at the other house.”

“There’s another house?”

“It’s a special house, just for people who stay all summer,” she told him, making his eyes get even wider.

When she looked up, Nancy saw Jonathan standing in the doorway to the dining room, a soft smile on his face. Ben must have followed Nancy’s line of sight because as Jonathan moved into the room, toward the side table with the food, Ben asked, “Is that your husband?”

“N-no. No,” Nancy insisted. “We’re not married.” Not sure how Ben’s parents might appreciate their son learning Nancy was staying here with a boyfriend rather than a husband, she added, “Yet. We’re not married yet.”

“Oh. What’s his name?” 

“Jonathan,” she replied, before noticing Ben’s parents finally missing him. “I think your parents want you back, kiddo.”

“Okay. Bye, Nancy!”

“Bye, Ben.”

Ben’s parents gave her an apologetic smile and a wave, and then Jonathan sat down with her. “Should I be jealous?”

Nancy rolled her eyes, but smiled. “Oh, yes. I’m going to run off with an eight-year-old. You should be so scared.”

Jonathan laughed and took a sip of his coffee. “El woke me up,” he said.

“Everything okay?” she asked, even though she was fairly certain by his demeanor that nothing was terribly wrong. 

“Instead of actually sleeping now that finals are over, she and Will are helping the others build their devices. Apparently they’re trying to finish before Dustin and Lucas go to summer camp,” Jonathan explained, taking another sip of coffee before digging into the food he’d put on his plate.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to rely on these things working. We’ve got a bunch of family interviews lined up this week, and a meeting with Sheriff Wyatt on Tuesday, so we can fill him in on our progress.”

“Sounds good,” Jonathan told her, taking another bite. He nodded toward the book in her hand. “Making any progress there?”

Nancy shook her head. “It’s still as dense and unhelpful as before. Why didn’t you write about anything interesting, N. Marek?” she asked the book, as if that would help. 

It didn’t help, but it made Jonathan laugh, so that was something, anyway.

Charlie came into the dining room next, looking even more surly than usual, with dark circles under her eyes. She hugged herself as she looked over the food on display, and then into the coffee pot. Without taking anything to eat, she left through the kitchen doors. 

Thinking that was odd, Nancy watched again as Charlie came back out of the kitchen with a plate of steaming-hot eggs and loaded them onto the table. Then she refreshed the pot of coffee. And then she stopped at Nancy and Jonathan’s table and asked, “You need anything?”

“No,” Nancy said, shaking her head. “Are you in charge of breakfast today?”

“Just the last half,” Charlie said, rubbing one of her eyes and smearing her makeup around a little. “Mary Ann goes to church on Sundays.”

“You know, I actually forgot that was a thing,” Jonathan said, more to Nancy than to Charlie. "Church."

Still, Charlie responded, “Not a fan of organized religion?”

“Can’t say I know too much about them,” Jonathan answered her, “but a lot of what I do know, I don’t agree with.”

Charlie made an impressed sort of face, then nodded over at Nancy, “What do you think?”

Nancy looked at her and said, “I think that if God exists, he’s a shithead.”

Jonathan laughed, and Charlie smiled, her eyes going wide and bright. She gave a small nod and left the room, still smiling.

“God’s a shithead, huh?” Jonathan asked, reaching across the table and putting his hand over Nancy’s. “He certainly hasn’t been very fair to us, has he?”

Nancy shook her head, thinking about Barb and how unfair her death had been. Of all the people not to make it out of Hawkins, Barb was the one who deserved it the least. 

“It’ll be four years in November,” Nancy told him, watching as it took him a few seconds to parse her meaning. 

“He’s been a shithead to the people here almost as long,” Jonathan pointed out, looking toward the door Charlie had disappeared through. 

Frowning at Jonathan, Nancy asked, “What are you thinking about her?”

“I think she lost someone,” Jonathan said, his eyes sad. “She’s angry and hurt and confused. It swirls around a lot, but she’s definitely not happy.”

Nancy laughed a little. “Even I could tell you that she’s not happy.” Flipping through her notebook until she was back to the list of people who disappeared, Nancy traced her finger down all the names. “Who could it be?”

Jonathan shrugged and shook his head. “If El comes out for a visit, maybe we can ask her to find out.”

“Or if Hop brings Jenny,” Nancy pointed out. “She’s better at that stuff than El is.”

Jonathan tilted his head. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

Nancy thought it was interesting, how all four of the Byers kids had their own things they were good at. Jonathan was best at reading emotions, Will was best at sensing the Upside Down, El was best at telekinesis, and Jenny was best at reading memories. She supposed people were always like that, though. Depending on their personalities and their backgrounds, everyone had something they were best at. 

Nancy frowned at the book on the table. She had thought she’d be good at this, at figuring out what had happened, but it had been two and a half weeks, and she still felt like they hadn't made much progress at all. She had to remind herself that Murray intended for the investigation to take a while. That was one of the main reasons he'd sent them instead of going out to Oregon himself. 

Sighing, Nancy asked Jonathan, "Did El say anything about the pictures we sent? Have they been able to find any of them?"

Jonathan shook his head. “No. There’s nothing.”

“Are they going to look again?” Nancy asked him.

“I think so,” he told her. “They’re going to spend a little time away from home helping finish those machines.”

Nancy scoffed a little. “I think finding an alive person would do more good than whatever these machines are that they want us to use.”

“Agreed,” Jonathan said, but he shrugged too, and Nancy could kind of see his point. When they were sixteen, they didn’t listen to their elders either.

~*~

Mid-week Steve had been looking for something useful to do that wasn't reading the same ten things over and over, giving himself a headache, so Mary Ann put him to work in the garden. He’d cut the lawn and weeded all the flowerbeds. The only task left to finish was spreading out the new mulch that had been delivered the evening before. 

Though the air wasn’t too hot this high up in the mountains, the sun was brutal, so Steve decided to take a break during the middle part of the day. He had just sat down in the shade of the back-house porch when Charlie came out of the house. She was carrying a glass of something with ice in it, and awkwardly handed it to him. “Thirsty?”

“Yeah, thanks,” he said, taking the glass and drinking from it. It was just ice water, but it hit the spot. 

As he finished the glass, he pushed his sweaty hair away from his face as best he could and sat back in the wooden chair. Charlie sat down in the other chair, gazing out at the main road through town and the one car driving down it. Looking over at her, Steve asked, “You okay?”

She shrugged one of her shoulders. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. You tell me,” Steve said, lifting the hem of his shirt and using it to wipe some of the sweat off his face. By the time he looked back over at Charlie, she was looking away from him, her cheek a little redder than it had been a moment before. Steve put his shirt back down. 

“It’s gonna happen again,” Charlie told him, looking down at her hands. “Why is it always on a Sunday? It’s supposed to be a nice day. A day of rest. Maybe Nancy’s right and God is a shithead.”

Steve understood about the upcoming Sunday. Someone else was going to vanish. Thinking about what Jonathan had told him, Steve asked Charlie, “Who was it that you lost?”

Charlie looked over at Steve, her eyes wide. “Who says I lost anyone?” she asked, and for a second Steve thought that maybe Jonathan was wrong. Then he recognized the shiver behind the steel in the way Charlie narrowed her eyes at him. 

“It’s kinda obvious at this point,” Steve told her, earning a frown. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said with a sarcastic smile. “I forgot. You don’t have friends.”

She rolled her eyes at him, but there was a little bit of a smile there, too. After it faded, she sighed heavily. Then Charlie said, "I lost my husband."

Confused about how that could be, since Nancy had been very thorough in researching the backgrounds of everyone who had vanished, Steve opened his mouth to ask Charlie.

She spoke again before he could get the question out. "He didn't disappear. I mean, not mysteriously. He divorced me. Left this town."

"Divorced?" Steve asked, even more confused than he had been a moment before. "But...how? You can't be older than twenty-four, can you?"

"I'm twenty-two," she insisted with a sneer. "We just…got married too early. He didn't understand what he was getting himself into."

"Ah." Steve watched Charlie carefully, noticing the way her shoulders hunched in and her hands wringed together. He thought a little bit about how much he wanted to marry Nancy and Jonathan, and about how maybe Nancy was right to want to wait. Still, he couldn't imagine himself _ever_ wanting to leave them, for any reason. "Sounds like he was an asshole."

"It'd be easier if he had been an asshole," she told him. "But he wasn't. He was just a stupid kid." She looked down again and said more softly, "So was I."

Gently, Steve asked her, "What happened?"

She scoffed and looked at him over her hunched shoulder. "Hasn't anyone told you yet? I'm crazy."

"Oh," he replied, not really sure where to take the conversation from there. "Like hears voices crazy or kills her housemates in their sleep crazy? You know, just for my information."

Charlie laughed and rolled her eyes, turning away from him again. She stood up and said, "See you around," before heading back into the house.

Steve finished the glass of water Charlie brought him and got back to work.

~*~

Nancy was at the kitchen table, trying to think of anything to fill her to do list before Sunday rolled around and someone else got taken, when the phone rang. Nancy stood up and answered it, saying, "Seymour residence, this is Nancy speaking."

"Nance," said the caller, and it took Nancy a second to recognize her brother's voice. "I don't think we're going to make it out there on time."

"Yeah, I kind of figured," she said, "when you didn't call to say you were leaving yesterday. It's fine. We all knew it was a long shot to begin with."

"Still, I'm sorry," he said. "It was my fault one of the prototypes blew up. I attached the wrong converter and the voltage was too high. It fried the board."

"Is El still staying at the house?" Nancy asked, before teasing him, "Were you _distracted_?"

"No!" he insisted, before sighing. "Yes. Will is mad at me because of it. He went to go stay at Dustin's house instead."

Nancy heard the pain in Mike's voice and her heart hurt for him. "Sometimes it's better to get a little bit of space," she told him. "Especially when everyone is stressed out."

"This summer was supposed to be fun," he said, and Nancy could practically see him pouting. "Now everyone is mad at each other."

Nancy thought about what she knew about her brother, and what she knew about Jonathan's brother. And also a little bit about how Jonathan tended to approach things, and she figured Will could be similar about a lot of things. "Just… try not to be too hard on Will for not telling you what you need to hear. He hasn't had enough practice at it yet."

"What do you mean?" Mike asked, and he sounded genuinely curious, rather than confrontational.

"What I mean is… In Will's family – in Jonathan's – sometimes they tend to skip over conversations that everyone else needs to have. Sometimes they don't recognize how much words mean to the rest of us, how difficult it is for us to know how other people are feeling." Nancy tried her best not to give too much away over the phone. "You have to try to remind him you can't read his mind."

"Ah," Mike said, going silent for a moment. "Sometimes he and El just _look_ at each other and laugh. It feels like they're laughing at me."

"I doubt they are," Nancy insisted. "They're not mean kids, Mike. They're just… too used to interacting mostly with each other. Jonathan and Steve were kind of the same way during my senior year."

"Did you get mad at them?" Mike asked her. "And, like, jealous?"

Nancy told Mike, "Oh, yeah. I really did."

"What did you do?" he asked her.

Nancy told him, "You kind of just have to acknowledge the way you're feeling without letting it affect your behavior toward either of them. And get them to talk it out, using real words, like, all the time. Constant conversation. Not just a single conversation once and then thinking you're done with it. That never works."

Mike made a little noise of acknowledgement. He sighed loudly before asking, "How did you figure all this stuff out? I mean, I know it's not the same with you guys. But it kind of feels like a worse version of what you have. And you were _my_ age when you started…"

"It was different for us," Nancy insisted. "Only one of us was a Byers," she pointed out. "And, I don't know, you learn a lot about a person during sex."

"Gross," Mike said, but his tone lacked much venom. "Will is one of my best friends. I don't want to…"

"I'm not suggesting that," Nancy insisted. "I'm just saying, if sex isn't part of the equation, which I know it isn't for Will with either of you, then _talking_ is the only way to resolve things. You know, without a fist fight."

"Alright," Mike said. "I'll give it a shot."

"Make sure to focus on telling Will how you're feeling. Don't attack him or try to pick a fight or anything," Nancy insisted. "That never ends well."

"Have you guys had fights before?"

"Oh yeah," Nancy admitted. "A couple really big ones. But we worked through them."

"Okay," Mike said with another sigh. "I'll give it a try. Maybe we can get there a few days after the event. See if we can pick up anything residual."

"Sounds good," Nancy told him. "I'm looking forward to seeing you guys."

"Yeah," Mike said with a slight chuckle. "Yeah, me too."


	9. The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio get an up-close look at the phenomenon.

“I don’t know what we’re going to find out here that we haven’t already found,” Jonathan said, leaning on Steve when Nancy stopped and took a drink from her canteen. The day wasn't as hot as it could get in Hawkins, but it was the hottest day since they'd arrived in Logan. Steve wiped the sweat off his forehead using his arm, grimacing as he then wiped his arm on his shirt.

"I don't know," Nancy told them, offering the canteen to Jonathan, who took it. "But the next disappearance is supposed to happen tomorrow. If there's something out here that needs to be stopped before that happens, I figured we'd have the best chance of finding it today."

After taking a few sips of water, Jonathan passed the canteen to Steve and said, "I want to try something."

Steve took a few long swallows, the warm water not really quenching his thirst, as Nancy asked Jonathan, "What?"

"Just…" Jonathan said, sitting down on the trail. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. 

Deciding he might as well rest his legs too, Steve sat down next to Jonathan. He held the canteen up to Nancy, who took it from him, slinging the strap across her body. Then she looked around, like she was searching for something.

"What'cha looking for?" Steve asked her, using a soft voice so he wouldn't disturb Jonathan too much. 

Nancy replied, "Someplace cleaner to sit than in the dirt."

Smiling, Steve reached for her. "My lap is free. C'mere."

Rolling her eyes and laughing, Nancy said, "Yeah, honey, I don't know that sitting in your lap is an entirely _clean_ activity."

Steve gave a surprised laugh. " _You're_ the one who made it dirty, Nance. Here I go, trying to be a gentleman, trying to do something nice…"

Sounding more amused than annoyed, Jonathan said, "I can't concentrate with you guys flirting like that."

"Sorry," Nancy said, but she still sat down on Steve's lap, linking her hands together behind his neck. She whispered, "I guess we've got to do something quieter."

"Like this?" he asked, kissing her. 

Nancy kissed him back, but just softly, and it was nice. Steve held her close and tugged lightly on her ponytail to make her smile against his lips.

Jonathan sighed. "I can tell that something's going to happen, but I can't seem to tell where it's coming from."

"What does it feel like?" Nancy asked him, reaching over to brush the backs of her fingers against his arm.

"Like…" Jonathan said, taking a deep breath and letting it out. "Like standing someplace really high up and getting that weird urge to jump. It feels like that."

Steve shivered and said, "Yeah, 'cause that doesn't sound ominous at all."

Looking worried, Nancy said, "It doesn't seem like there's anything left to find out here. Let's get back to the house."

"Yeah," Jonathan said, opening his eyes. "Let's get out of here." He gave one hand each to Nancy and Steve, helping them up onto their feet. 

Steve couldn't help throwing his arm around Jonathan's shoulders and hugging him close, pressing a kiss to his jaw. Jonathan's reaction to being here rattled him, and Steve knew he was going to have a hard time winding down and sleeping that night. Hopefully holding Jonathan and Nancy both as close as they would let him would help.

~*~

Jonathan was in the bathroom, washing his hands, when he heard someone come in the kitchen door downstairs and yell, "Shit!"

It was an unusual occurrence, especially on a Sunday morning, so Jonathan reached out and found Charlie on the verge of panic. He left the bathroom and hurried down the stairs, finding her in the kitchen, "What's wrong?"

"Those _assholes_ ," she said, pointing to the bed and breakfast next door. "Stupid fucking out-of-towners! They're going hiking one last time before they drive back to the city."

"They're going hiking around _here_?" Jonathan asked. " _Today_?"

Charlie nodded her head. "I tried to warn them. I _tried_."

"Who is it?" Jonathan demanded, heading back toward the staircase so he could go grab his shoes and the car keys. "That couple from Seattle?"

Shaking her head, tears welling up in her eyes, she said, "The family with the boy."

"Shit," Jonathan said, taking the stairs two at a time. He burst into the room, quickly pulling on a pair of shorts and his shoes, throwing a sweatshirt over his shoulder and picking up the car keys and his wallet. 

"What's going on?" Nancy asked from the bed, already pulling on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Steve turned over and started to get dressed as well.

Jonathan paused in the doorway, hoping that the extra help would be worth waiting a few extra seconds. "His parents are taking your friend," Jonathan said, nodding at Nancy, "the little boy into the woods today. Charlie couldn't convince them not to go."

"Ah, fuck," Steve said, buttoning his shorts and shoving his feet into a pair of sneakers. He grabbed a shirt and followed Jonathan down the stairs. 

Charlie was still pacing in the kitchen.

"What trail were they going to hike?" Jonathan asked her. "Did they say?"

"Braddock Falls," she said.

Jonathan wasn't familiar with that one, so he called up the stairs, "Nancy, we need the map!"

"Are you coming with us?" Steve asked Charlie as he pulled his shirt on over his head.

Her eyes went wide and she shook her head, pushing one hand into her short hair. "No, no. I can't. I can't go out there. Not today!"

"Fine," Jonathan told her. There wasn't enough time to argue. "What kind of car did they have?"

"It's a tan wagon," Steve said, leading the way out the kitchen door. "Subaru, I think. Come on!"

Jonathan followed Steve, Nancy right on their heels. 

Turning around Steve held his hand out. "Keys!"

Jonathan tossed them, and Steve caught them easily, unlocking the car and starting the engine. 

Jonathan and Nancy were barely inside the car before Steve threw it into gear and pulled out of the lot. Turning around in his seat, Jonathan asked Nancy, "How do we get to the Braddock Falls trail?"

She unfolded the map and ran her finger across it. "Okay, it's pretty far west compared to the rest of the trails we've walked. Turn north on…" She turned the map and held it closer to her face as the car went over a few potholes, bumping her around. "On J Street! It's close."

Steve took the turn quickly, earning a honk from another driver and almost throwing Jonathan out of his seat. Jonathan pulled his seat belt on and looked out ahead of the car, searching for a tan wagon. 

"They were only a couple minutes ahead of us," Jonathan insisted. "If we can catch up to them…"

"What do we tell them?" Steve asked, revving the engine and passing a slow-moving car. "We can't exactly tell people not to go into the woods today because of interdimensional voodoo, if that's even what's going on."

"We'll tell them we saw a bear or something," Nancy told them. "There are black bears all over the place around here, aren't there?"

"Maybe Braddock falls are too far west," Steve said, his knuckles white on the steering wheel as he passed a pickup truck. "Maybe they aren't in any danger."

Nancy asked, "What time is it?"

"Almost eleven-thirty," Jonathan told her. 

Biting her lip, Nancy shook her head. She spread her long fingers out over the map, her pinky on Cedarville and her thumb sweeping in an arc across the map. "Esther Bonney was taken from just as far away from the center point, only she was to the south instead of to the west."

"Do we know what _time_ she was taken?" Steve asked, having to slow down to make a switch-back turn up around one of the foothills. 

"No," Nancy told him, giving Jonathan a scared look. "It could have been this early. It fits the pattern."

"Shit," Steve said, leaning forward as he took another turn. "Oh! I think I see their car. That's it, right?"

There was a tan colored station wagon parked in the parking space next to the trail head. Steve pulled in next to it and Jonathan hopped out of the car. He put his hand on the other car’s hood, making sure it was warm and had been running recently. "This is it," he told the others, running toward the trail head. "Hello! Is anyone here?"

"Ben!" Nancy called out, just behind Jonathan. "Ben! It's not safe!"

Steve loped ahead of both of them, taking the trail in long strides and calling out, "Ben! Ben's parents! Where are you?"

"Shouldn't they be here?" Jonathan asked, keeping up with Steve as best he could. "Ben!"

"Ben! Hello!" Steve called out.

Nancy was still behind them. "Ben! Ben, where are you?"

"What if it already got them?" Steve asked, shooting the shortest of glances back at Jonathan. "Shouldn't we have caught up by now?"

"I haven't felt any energized places," Jonathan told him. "Keep going up the trail."

Steve nodded and kept going, outpacing Jonathan easily. "Ben! Ben!"

"Hello?" Jonathan called. "Hel–"

And then he felt _it_. That spine-tingling feeling that something was about to happen – that something, maybe him, was about to fall – started to grow. It got louder and more present in his head, making his hair stand on end. Goosebumps covered his arms, his thighs, his neck. Something was coming. Something big and uncontrollable. 

Something dangerous.

“We need to get out of here!” Jonathan told the others. “Right fucking now! Steve!”

“What about the kid?” Steve called back, pausing at the top of the crest. 

The feeling got stronger, almost taking Jonathan's breath away. “It’s too late! Come on!”

Turning around, Jonathan saw Nancy running down the trail ahead of him, obviously heeding his warning. God, the wrong-feeling was getting closer now. He put on a burst of speed, all but falling down the trail in his haste to catch up with her. To get away. 

And then he made a horrible realization. 

“We’re going the wrong way!” he cried. “Nancy, we’re running toward it!”

“What?” she asked, slowing down and turning to face him. 

Jonathan kept moving toward her, Steve just behind him, as he cried out, “Back this way! Come on!”

“Shit!” she said, climbing back up the trail. 

Steve passed Jonathan, loping back down the trail, reaching for Nancy. “C’mon, baby! Let’s go!”

Jonathan followed, right on Steve’s heels, ready to pull both of them back up the trail and away from the _thing_ bearing down on them. 

It was getting so close! It–

Jonathan watched in horror as an invisible curtain passed over Nancy, swallowing her up inches from Steve grasping her hand. 

“Nancy!” Steve yelled, stumbling into empty space where she had been a fraction of a second earlier. 

“No,” Jonathan whispered, his legs giving out from under him. The horrible encroaching feeling of doom dissolved, just like that, like it was satisfied now that it had Nancy. “God, no!”

“Nancy!” Steve cried out again, his voice breaking. “She was– She was right there! Nancy! Baby, where are you?” Steve ran a few steps down the trail, looking around.

“She’s not there!” Jonathan tried to call out after Steve, but his throat felt so thick and his voice wouldn’t work, turning his cry into a whisper. 

Steve ran back to Jonathan, crashing to the ground in front of him. “You can find her,” he insisted. “Like you always find us. You _always_ know where we are.”

“I–” Jonathan didn’t know how to explain the _emptiness_ in his mind where Nancy usually sat. “She’s not–”

“No, don’t say that!” Steve insisted, wrapping his hands around Jonathan’s hands and pressing his forehead to Jonathan’s forehead. “She’s somewhere! Just– just use your superpowers. Find her! Please!”

Steve’s voice broke and tears welled up in his eyes, and Jonathan knew he was crying too, because he could barely see Steve’s face inches in front of his. 

Steve whispered, “Please?”

Nodding his head, Jonathan closed his eyes. He concentrated as hard as he could on that empty spot, willing it to fill up, willing Nancy to be there. Pain lanced through his head, but he pushed past it, looking for Nancy _anywhere_. There couldn’t be a place far enough that would keep him from finding her.

“Remember what she smells like, okay?” Steve whispered in Jonathan’s ear. “Remember…” 

Jonathan caught a flash of Nancy’s face, and for a second he thought he’d found her, but then he realized it was one of Steve’s memories of her. It was the moment he fell in love with her, even though he barely knew her. 

“And...and…” Steve sniffled, the noise loud in Jonathan’s pounding head. Steve’s remembered image of Nancy changed to a more recent one. She smiled up at Steve, and there was such a deep surge of love associated with the memory that it took Jonathan’s breath away. 

He let it fill him up, all but choking on it, his blood rushing in his ears and his head feeling like it might explode. Jonathan could hear himself crying out at the pain, but Steve had him. Steve held his hand and made a shushing noise in his ear and Jonathan focused everything he had on finding Nancy. 

Wherever she was, in this universe or the next, he was going to find her. 

Jonathan managed to locate the tiniest familiar flicker. 

_Nancy?_

His breath escaped him, and then everything fell away and he passed out.

~*~

Nancy ran up the trail, fueled by adrenaline and the fear on Jonathan’s face. How were they supposed to run away from this thing? If it started out this far and converged on a central point, it was like a tightening net. A noose. 

Still, Nancy was too afraid to give up. Not yet. 

She ran and jumped up the trail as quickly as her legs allowed, meeting Steve as he came back for her. She felt like if she could only grasp his hand, she would be safe, and so would he. 

Just before she managed to touch him, a chill ran up the back of Nancy’s spine. Sparks danced across her skin, firing up her neurons in a tingling rush that _almost_ hurt. And then Steve and Jonathan both disappeared. 

“No!” she cried out, stumbling and having to catch herself with her hands in the dirt. “No! Fuck!”

Never before had two people been taken at the same time! Now whatever this was took _both_ of her men? No! Impossible!

“Steve!” she called out. “Jonathan! Steve!”

Nancy ran up the trail, all the way to where it crested at the top of a hill. “Jonathan!”

They were nowhere to be found. “Steve! Where are you?”

Even though the air was warm, and the sky bright above the forest canopy, Nancy shivered. This reminded her too much of searching the Upside Down for Barb. “Jonathan!”

She needed help. A search party or something. She needed El.

Nancy ran back down the trail toward the car. She didn’t have the keys, but maybe Steve had left the car open. She had a pocket knife with her, which meant she could hotwire the thing if she needed to. Joyce would forgive her for messing up the car a little, she was sure.

At the bottom of the trail, when it let out onto the road, there was only one car there, and it wasn’t Joyce’s Chevy. It wasn’t even the Subaru wagon Ben’s parents drove. It was some sort of old Jeep. As she got around the side, she saw it was painted with a crest and said, “Oregon State Forest Ranger.”

“Oh, thank god,” Nancy cried, running up to the Jeep and hoping someone was inside. “Hello?”

The driver door opened and an older man wearing a wide-brimmed Ranger hat stepped out. “I guess it’s my turn this year,” he said, giving Nancy a kind smile. “What’s the problem, miss?”

“My friends…” Nancy said, pointing back to the trail as she caught her breath. “I lost them on the trail. I need help finding them. A search party! Something!”

“Whoa,” he said. “Slow down, miss! What’s your name?”

“Nancy Wheeler,” she told him. “What’s yours?”

“Red MacIver,” he told her. “I’m a forest ranger. I can help you, but I need you to calm down.”

Glaring at him, Nancy controlled her voice very carefully. “I am ... fucking … _calm_. I need you to help me find my friends. I know we were out on the trail when we shouldn’t have been, but there was a kid out there. We were just trying to make sure he didn’t get taken. Do you understand?”

“So,” he said, standing up a little straighter. “You know about the phenomenon. That’ll make this easier.”

A tight knot in her gut, Nancy demanded, “Make _what_ easier?”

“You’re one of us now, girlie,” he said with a sad shake of his head. “I’m sorry to say.”

“One of _us_?” Nancy asked, backing away from him and putting her hand in her pocket, curling around the knife there. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Let me take you to town, get you all settled,” MacIver said, gesturing back to his Jeep. “We’ll explain things as you’re ready to hear them.”

“What if I’m ready now?” Nancy asked. “What if I’m ready _right_ now? Tell me what is going on!”

He smiled and said, “Whoo! I always forget how young we all were once. How much fight we had left in us.”

What a patronizing asshole!

“Stay the fuck away from me,” Nancy told him, deciding to head back into town on foot. It wasn’t that far, and it was mostly downhill. She could call in Sheriff Wyatt, get some real law enforcement looking for Jonathan and Steve.

She started walking. All she had to do was get down the hill, and then she’d be at J street, which she could follow into town. 

So Nancy walked. She noticed the forest ranger’s Jeep idling along behind her fifty yards back, but he seemed content to follow at a distance, at least for the time being. 

After half an hour or so, Nancy began to wonder if she’d made a wrong turn. She should have been to J street by now. It wasn’t that far. 

And why was she pointed east? How had that happened? Wasn’t she going south? Had she gotten turned around on one of the switchbacks?

Growling with frustration, Nancy turned back and stomped toward the ranger’s Jeep. He leaned over and rolled down the passenger side window as she approached. 

“I got turned around,” she admitted. “And we’re wasting daylight. Can you just take me down into Logan? I want to call the Sheriff and bring him in.”

“What makes you think the Sheriff is going to bother?” he asked. “You just lost your friends less than an hour ago, right?”

Nancy nodded. 

“It’s State forest all up the side of this mountain, Miss Wheeler,” MacIver told her. “It’s not the Sheriff’s jurisdiction unless my department calls him in.”

“Well he fucking sent me here,” Nancy told MacIver. “He sent me here to figure out what’s been going on, why so many people have been disappearing, and that’s what I’m damn well going to do! So, will you help me get to Logan, or not?”

MacIver pressed his lips together in a thin line. “You know a lot about all the people who’ve gone missing?”

Nancy nodded. “I’ve been doing research nonstop for over three weeks.”

Looking down at where his hand rested on the steering wheel, he said, “I was born Buck Harrell.”

Nancy frowned at MacIver. “Disappeared December 1st, 1985. Twenty-nine years old. Buck Harrell, if he’s still alive, would be thirty-one in September. You’ve got to be at least fifty. You’re _not_ him.”

With a sad little laugh, MacIver said, “I can see why the Sheriff hired you.”

“So, are you going to stop lying to me and start helping?” Nancy asked. “Or am I going to keep walking all day?”

“I’ll take you into town,” MacIver told her, tilting his head in a gesture that indicated she should get into the Jeep. “Come on. I’ve got a few more people you should talk to.”

~*~

When Jonathan whispered, “Nancy?” and then went limp in Steve’s arms, Steve feared the worst. 

“Jonathan?” he asked, lowering Jonathan away from him to get a better look. His eyes were closed and his skin was pale, streaked with dark branching shapes, as thin and delicate as blood vessels. Bright red blood dribbled from Jonathan’s nose, pulsing in time with the slow beating of his heart. 

“Shit,” Steve said, taking off his shirt and pressing it under Jonathan’s nose. He didn’t want the blood to go back into Jonathan’s stomach or lungs, so Steve put Jonathan on his side in the dirt, angling his face down a little bit. He pressed his shirt tight to Jonathan’s nose and a few seconds later, Jonathan opened his mouth and took a gasping breath. 

“Baby? Jonathan? Are you back with me?” Steve asked, shaking him a little bit, but there was no response. He was alive and breathing, and bleeding, but not conscious. “God damn it!”

He’d been so worried about Nancy, about finding her and getting her back, he’d let Jonathan push himself too hard. God, how could Steve have been so stupid? Now he was going to lose both of them!

“Hey!” called a voice from the top of the hill. “Hey, are you okay?”

Looking up, Steve saw the family from the bed and breakfast, all there and accounted for. Even the little kid.

A sob escaped Steve, and he quickly pushed the tears away. Crying wouldn’t do anyone any good at this point. 

The mom of the family reached Steve first, telling him, “I’m a nurse, okay? Can you tell me what happened?”

_You wouldn’t believe me if I tried_.

Still sniffling a little, Steve told her, “My friend gets these bad nosebleeds. He passed out this time, and I haven’t been able to wake him up yet.”

“Did he hit his head?” she asked, putting her fingers on Jonathan’s neck.

“No,” Steve told her. “He sat down and I was holding him when he passed out.”

“Let’s try to get him more level, try to increase the blood flow to his brain.” The woman beckoned her husband closer. “Get his feet out that way.”

“I didn’t want him to choke on the blood,” Steve told her, helping Ben’s parents get Jonathan all the way on the ground. 

“Here,” the woman said, carefully putting her hands on the sides of Jonathan’s face, “let’s just turn his head to the side a little bit.”

Steve took his shirt away from Jonathan’s nose, and there was a big dark patch on it, but the bleeding had slowed down a lot already. “It’s getting better,” he told her, turning the shirt and pressing a cleaner patch under Jonathan’s nose. 

Behind Steve, Ben’s dad made a sound kind of like he was going to be sick. 

The woman scoffed and said, “Benjamin, take your father back to the car, please, would you?”

“Sure, mom,” the kid said. Steve wondered if Nancy would be happy to know that Ben and his parents were fine.

“What’s his name?” the woman asked, looking down at Jonathan and then back up at Steve for his answer.

“Jonathan,” he told her. 

In a loud and clear voice, she said, “Jonathan? Jonathan, can you hear me?” She made a fist and rubbed her knuckles in the center of Jonathan’s chest. “Jonathan? Come on. Wake up.”

Jonathan’s eyes flew open and he coughed a few times before taking a big, gasping breath. 

“Hey, hey,” Steve said, grabbing one of Jonathan’s hands and clasping it tightly. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

“Steve?” Jonathan asked, pushing the shirt away from under his nose. He looked over and startled a little when he saw Ben’s mom. “What?”

“You had one of your nosebleeds,” Steve told him, widening his eyes so Jonathan wouldn’t accidentally say too much. “You passed out.”

“How are you feeling, Jonathan?” the nurse asked. “You should stay laying down for at least a few more minutes.” Looking up at Steve, she asked, “Do you have any water or anything to give him?”

Steve shook his head. “It was kind of a last-minute hike.”

She frowned a little bit, but nodded and took a canteen from her hip. "Here. Jonathan? I need you to drink this. You need fluids to get your blood pressure back up."

Jonathan nodded, taking the canteen and drinking from it. After a few sips, he coughed and said, "We've gotta call Mom."

"Yeah," Steve said with a sigh. "Where were Hop and the others supposed to be today? Indiana still?"

Jonathan nodded, closing his eyes and laying back in the dirt. When he looked up again, he asked, "What happened to your shirt?"

Looking down, Steve shrugged. He held up his bloodstained shirt, telling Jonathan, "You owe me a new shirt."

"That one's mine," Jonathan said, but he didn't smile or make a joke out of it. His eyes sad again, he said, "Nancy."

"I know."

"Help me up?"

Looking up at the nurse, Steve asked, "Is it okay? Do you think?"

She pressed her lips together, looking down the trail. "I'd rather we carried him out if we could. That length of unconsciousness can be serious. You said he gets these nosebleeds frequently?"

"They're usually not that bad," Steve insisted. 

"Still, blood pressure that low can be dangerous. It starves the vital organs. If I had my druthers, we'd call an ambulance and get the medics here with IV fluids and a stretcher."

"No IV," Jonathan insisted, clutching Steve's arm painfully.

"I won't let them," Steve insisted. "Not unless you're actually dying. I can't…" He leaned closer and whispered to Jonathan, "I can't lose you, too."

"Get me up," Jonathan said. "I can walk."

"Slowly," the nurse insisted. 

Steve pulled Jonathan up until he was sitting, giving him the canteen again. "Finish that."

Jonathan nodded and took the canteen, drinking the last of the water. 

Steve got to his feet, planting them solidly on the trail before reaching for Jonathan. "Slowly, like the lady said," he insisted. Jonathan got halfway up to standing before his legs started wobbling and he sat back down.

"We don't have time for this," Steve insisted, anxious to call someone, _anyone_ who could help them find Nancy. He ducked down, pulling Jonathan up and onto his shoulders, his right arm between Jonathan's legs and grasping Jonathan's right arm to keep him steady on Steve's shoulders. Standing up, Steve grumbled, "Why have you _lost_ weight? Who's been feeding you?"

" _You_ have been," Jonathan replied, but he held on tight to Steve's arm. 

Steve held his left hand out to the nurse. "Think I could get a little help? Just so I don't trip?"

The nurse nodded, taking Steve's hand in a tight grip and leading him down the trail. 

"What's your name, anyway?" Steve asked her.

"Debbie," she said, holding on tight as Steve took a large step down. "What's yours?"

"Steve," he told her, controlling his breath so he wouldn't get a stitch in his side. "Sorry we ruined your hike."

"Oh, don't worry about it," she insisted. "We have to get going, anyway. It's a long drive back and my husband has work in the morning."

Steve nodded. The end of the trail was in sight. "We're almost there."

"Good," Jonathan said, with a little bit of a groan. "Oh, sorry. I'm bleeding on you."

"Don't worry about it," Steve said, having to bite back the urge to call him, "babe." "Not the first time, won't be the last."

"You might want to have a doctor check him out," Debbie said, helping Steve down a few more steps. "He might have a bleeding disorder."

"He doesn't," Steve told her. "He's got a doctor back in Chicago that's got an eye on it."

She sighed, but said, "Alright. Just keep a close eye on him. Give him plenty of fluids and foods with lots of iron. Meat. Bone broth. Those kinds of things."

"Yeah, okay," Steve said, starting to run out of strength in his legs. He got over to the car and set Jonathan down, holding him up against it as he opened the back door. "Thanks, Debbie! Thanks, Debbie's family!"

Then Steve got Jonathan to lay down across the back seat. He got into the driver's seat and took a few shaky breaths. "Please, babe," he said, watching in the rear view as Debbie's family pulled away from the trail head and out onto the road. "Please tell me she's still alive."

"I felt something," Jonathan said with a groan. "I think it was her. She was _really_ far away."

"Well, it's something, at least." Steve sighed and started the car. "Let's get you back in good shape. We'll look again when we can."

"Tomorrow," Jonathan said. "I can find her tomorrow. In the bath."

Steve shook his head, not wanting to give himself false hope. None of the others had come back. Maybe he had to get used to the fact that Nancy wasn't coming back either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the angst, but this is literally my favorite chapter of the whole story :D


	10. The Search

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy explores her surroundings while Jonathan searches for her again.

As Ranger MacIver drove, Nancy could tell they weren't heading into Logan. They were further east. Her voice cold, Nancy asked him, "Where are you taking me?"

"The only place I can go," he replied cryptically. Looking over at her a few times as he drove, MacIver added, "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just trying to help. I promise."

The road they followed into the forest was narrow, and it didn't take too long before the trees thinned and they pulled into a town square of sorts. The building at the center of the square was a large log cabin, a tendril of smoke rising from the chimney on the roof.

"What is this place?" Nancy asked, getting out of the Jeep and looking around. 

Someone came out of the building across the street – Nancy thought it looked a little like a general store or something – and called out, "We got one already, MacIver?"

"Yeah," the ranger called back. "Someone go get Mr. Summers."

"I'll get him," a young man called from the other direction, running off down the road toward a house that was bigger than the others.

"You might as well come in," MacIver told Nancy, gesturing toward the log cabin. 

Nancy crossed her arms. "I'd actually feel more comfortable staying right here."

A woman's voice from behind Nancy asked, "Was I this difficult when it was me?"

"No," MacIver said as Nancy turned around. "You were worse."

Nancy had only ever seen the woman behind her in photographs. They didn't do her justice. "Alexis Breckinridge?" Nancy asked, her stomach sinking as she started to realize what MacIver had meant by "one of us." Shaking her head, Nancy whispered, "Oh, no."

"I'm sorry," she said with a sad expression, reaching for Nancy and putting a sympathetic hand on Nancy's arm. "We were hoping there wouldn't be someone this time around."

Nancy pressed her lips together and nodded. Wrapping her arms around herself, she told Alexis, "There was a boy in the woods this morning. We were trying to get him out in time."

"Oh, sweetie," Alexis said, wrapping her arms around Nancy and hugging her. Oddly enough, Nancy felt like allowing the hug.

There was more of a crowd gathered around now, so when Alexis let go of her, Nancy asked, "What is this place?"

"This is Cedarville," MacIver told her, his eyes tracking them as the young man from earlier returned with an elderly man, helping him walk toward the town square.

Nancy shook her head. "No. Cedarville is abandoned. I've been there. It looks nothing like this."

"You've been there back on the other side," MacIver told her, opening the door for the elderly man. 

Frustrated, Nancy asked him, "On the other side of _what_?"

"Come on inside," Alexis told Nancy, angling her head toward the building. "Talk to Mr. Summers. He's the best at explaining it."

Nancy tried not to clench her teeth too hard as she followed Mr. Summers into the building. If he had answers, she wanted them.

~*~

Jonathan felt sick to his stomach as he rode in the backseat of the Chevy, looking at the ceiling and trying not to convince himself that the flicker of _something_ he'd felt before was anything but Nancy. It had to be her. 

It didn't take long to get back to the house. Steve parked much closer to the kitchen door than he usually did, before coming around and opening the door at Jonathan's feet. "Do I need to carry you into the house?"

"No," Jonathan insisted, scooting down until his feet were out of the car and he could reach Steve's hand. "Just...let me put my arm over your shoulders."

Steve nodded. He pulled Jonathan up onto his feet, then held tight around his ribs as they walked up the stairs to the kitchen door. "I'm sorry I pushed you so hard. I shouldn't have done it."

"I would have pushed myself that hard anyway," Jonathan insisted, trying not to let the world swim around on him too much. "She's…"

"We'll find her," Steve insisted as they got into the kitchen.

Steve was helping Jonathan sit down in one of the kitchen chairs when Charlie came down the stairs. "What happened?" she asked, looking at the two of them. "Where's…" She stopped in her tracks, putting her hand over her mouth.

Grimly, Jonathan looked at her and shook his head.

Steve cleared his throat. "So, yeah. The good news is that the little kid is fine."

"Shit," Charlie muttered, pressing her hand to her head. "I shouldn't have said anything."

She stomped through the kitchen and opened the freezer. Jonathan watched as she took the cap off the bottle, downed four or five swallows, and then capped it again. She set the bottle on the table, saying, "I bet you guys need this more than I do."

Jonathan wrapped his hands around the bottle. If he hadn't caught the slightest trace of Nancy, he might have given into temptation. As it was, Jonathan needed every ounce of his power. He couldn't afford to dull his senses. Not if he wanted to find Nancy. He held the bottle out toward Charlie, "No, thanks. That's not going to help us get her back."

"What do you mean, get her back?" Charlie asked, sitting down next to Jonathan. Across the kitchen, Steve had the phone off the hook and was dialing. "None of them have _ever_ come back. You're not going to get her back."

Jonathan was tapped out, but this close to her it was easy to read Charlie. "Why do you feel responsible?" he asked her, giving Charlie a hard look. "Where is all the guilt coming from? Do you have something to do with this?"

Charlie stared at him, her mouth opening and closing for a few moments. Eventually, she said, "No! Of course not."

"You're lying," Jonathan told her, not looking away. "Why are you lying?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Charlie asked, opening the bottle of vodka and downing a few more swallows. "I'm sorry for your loss," she said, pushing away from the table and standing up, "but don't put this bullshit on me."

She stomped out of the kitchen, and then out the front door, the screen door slamming shut behind her. 

"So, Tuesday?" Steve asked, watching Charlie leave and then pressing the phone between his cheek and his shoulder as he walked around the kitchen, grabbing a glass from the cabinet and filling it with tap water. "Just fly into Portland, Mom. I'll drive up and get you." He set the glass down in front of Jonathan. "Yeah, here he is."

Steve handed Jonathan the phone. "Mom?"

"Oh, sweetie. I'm so sorry," she said, and when Jonathan closed his eyes, tears fell from them. "But Steve said you thought you could find her?"

"Yeah, I think so," Jonathan told her, picking up the glass of water and taking a long drink, because he was really fucking thirsty. "If I can get the kids to help me, I think it'll work better," he told her. "Any idea where they are today?"

"Probably still in Iowa right now," Joyce told him. "They were planning on stopping somewhere in Nebraska tonight. I'll have them call when I talk to them."

"Thanks, Mom," Jonathan said with a sigh. "I can't believe we were so stupid. We shouldn't have been out there."

"We'll figure it out, baby," she insisted. "Remember. We Byers don't give up."

"I know." He took another drink of water. "You might fly in?"

"Yeah," Joyce said. "I'll bring Jenny with me. Whatever happens, I'll be there for you, okay, Jonathan?"

He nodded, pressing his hand to his left eye to help balance out the pressure behind it. "I love you, Mom. I just need you to know that."

"I love you, too," she said, with a sniffle. "So much, Jonathan. So much."

"Yeah."

"Try to get some rest. Let Steve take care of you, okay? And…" She sighed a little. "Don't forget to make sure he takes care of himself."

"I won't," Jonathan told her. "Have them call as soon as you can."

"I will."

"Bye, Mom."

"Goodbye, Jonathan."

~*~

"What is your name, Miss?" Mr. Summers said, sitting across the table from her. It was a large table in the center of the log cabin building, obviously meant for meetings of some sort. Maybe even town meetings.

"Nancy Wheeler," she told him. "What's your full name?"

He gave a little bit of a laugh, his watery eyes squinting as he smiled. "Stuart Summers."

"You're in charge here?"

He spread his hands wide. "I'm the de facto leader of those of us who are trapped here. As I've been here the longest."

"Trapped?" Nancy asked, looking around as the others nodded sadly. There were about a dozen people gathered around the room, including Alexis and MacIver. "What do you mean, trapped?"

"None of us can leave," MacIver explained. "Where I found you is about as far as we can go."

Thinking about the way she'd gotten lost earlier, Nancy asked, "What happens? When you try to leave?"

MacIver shrugged, looking over at a man Nancy recognized as Kirby Serizawa. 

"We've all tried a million times," Kirby insisted. "But as soon as you get more than about two miles out, space just starts to _bend_."

Nancy pursed her lips and nodded, trying her best not to cry. "Trapped."

Kirby nodded.

"Is it everyone in the town?"

"No," Mr. Summers said. "It's just us, but the others know about it. They help us. Bring us what we need."

"Can they bring my family?" Nancy asked. "I have people I was separated from."

"We all had people," Mr. Summers said, with a kind but sad smile. "Unfortunately, we can't contact them. We can't contact the outside world."

Scoffing, Nancy asked, "So, what? The telephones don't work?"

"They do," Mr. Summers told her. "But the last one of us who called his family disappeared."

"Someone came and took him?" Nancy asked, looking around at the others.

An older woman shook her head. "Five or six of us watched him just blink out of existence. Just... _poof_."

"Poof."

The woman nodded, and so did several of the others, including Mr. Summers.

"So, what am I supposed to do here?" Nancy asked. "I can't _not_ look for a way out."

"Feel free to look," Mr. Summers told her. "But if you contact anyone outside the town, you're taking your life in your own hands." He looked around at the others. "We've all been able to learn how to live here relatively happily. I would suggest you try to do the same."

Nancy nodded, knowing it wouldn't be possible. How could she be happy without Jonathan and Steve? How could she be happy never talking to her family again? There had to be something going on here. There had to be some sort of trick. 

Looking out the windows, she saw that the sun was starting to throw longer shadows than she would have thought. "What time is it?"

"About three in the afternoon," Alexis told her. "Hey, you can come home with me, if you want. I have an extra room. Food? A shower?"

Not sure what else to do, Nancy nodded. "I'm leaving in the morning."

Alexis nodded. "Of course you are," she said, like she was humoring Nancy. 

Nancy put her hand in her pocket and wrapped her fingers around her pocket knife. She was going to figure this place out, even if it killed her.

~*~

Steve had managed to get Jonathan fed, and get him to drink glass after glass of water, before putting him to bed. He laid with Jonathan, holding him and petting his hair until he fell asleep. Steve had no illusions. Jonathan was only able to sleep because he'd pushed himself too hard that day. There was no way Steve was going to sleep. Not while they didn't know where Nancy was.

The phone rang at eight thirty, and Steve carefully left the room before jumping down the stairs and answering it in the kitchen. "Hey, this is Steve."

"Steve?" It was El's voice on the line. "Mom said that…"

"Nancy, yeah," Steve told her, not even sure how to explain it. "We lost her. But," he said quickly, before El could ask any questions. "Jonathan thinks he can find her again, if you and Will help."

"Okay," she said, her voice thick. "Are you okay? Is Jonathan? I heard him earlier. He was in pain."

"He's okay," Steve assured her. "I pushed him too hard. Or he pushed himself too hard. Something like that. He's sleeping now."

"Does he want us to try to find her?"

"Not now," Steve insisted, remembering what he could of Jonathan's whispered plan. "I think he wants all three of you to be fresh in the morning. He wants to meet you in the Inbetween."

"Okay," El told him. "What time?"

"I don't know. Do you have a hotel room? A number I could call you at in the morning?"

There was a shuffle on the other end of the line, and then it was Hop, saying, "Hey, are you ready to write this down?"

"Yeah," Steve assured him, sniffling a little and drying his eye on the shoulder of his shirt. He wrote down the number Hop gave him, and then read it back to him. "Don't go anywhere until we call you, okay?"

"Okay. We'll be here," Hop agreed. "Try to get some sleep, hey, kid?"

"I can _try_ ," Steve told him with a sad little laugh. "But I won't."

He rumbled sympathetically, "Yeah, I know."

~*~

Nancy looked down on her map, tracing the trails with her pencil and keeping an eye on the compass Kirby had leant her. She took a large sip of water from her canteen and then continued down the trail. She'd already checked this trail the first day she'd been out, but after checking in all directions, she was back to where she'd started. 

The Braddock Falls trail.

Nancy climbed up the hill to the trail head, her legs strong and used to the work. She paused in the little parking alcove, remembering where the Chevy had sat the last time she'd seen it. 

God, that felt like forever ago.

Determined to find, if not a way out, then at least the point at which she'd entered this _place_ where she was trapped, Nancy started up the trail. She remembered running up it, looking for the little boy, then back down when Jonathan told her the phenomenon was coming. Then back up, reaching for Steve.

Nancy found the spot where she'd been taken from. Or been taken to. Whatever. 

She stood there on the trail, reaching up, picturing Steve and Jonathan _right there_ , almost close enough to touch.

Almost, but not quite.

Nancy sat down on the trail, resting her chin on her knees and trying not to cry. It never did any good, as often as she'd done it since she'd been trapped here. Sometimes the tears made her feel better, but mostly they just drained her.

She closed her eyes, listening to the forest around her.

_Nancy_?

"Jonathan?" Nancy called out. She had heard him, hadn't she? "Jonathan?"

"Nancy?" 

She leaped up to her feet, turning around to look. "Oh, my god! Jonathan! Where are you?"

~*~

"I'm ready," Jonathan said, shaking his head when Steve tried to push another slice of bacon on him. "No, I ate enough. Let's call the others."

Dark circles under his eyes, because of course he hadn't slept, Steve nodded at Jonathan. "Okay, baby." He stood up and took the kitchen phone off the hook. After dialing a bunch of numbers, Steve handed the phone over to Jonathan.

He took it and held it to his ear, sighing with relief when Will answered, "Hello?"

Jonathan watched Steve climb the steps.

"It's Jonathan," he said, hearing the water run in the upstairs bathroom. "I want to meet you in the Inbetween in fifteen minutes. You and El."

"We'll be there," Will told him. "See you soon."

"Soon," Jonathan echoed. He stood up and put the phone back on the hook before climbing the stairs. He'd gotten a lot of his strength back after yesterday, but not all of it. Hopefully he would have enough to find Nancy.

On the way to the bathroom, Jonathan stopped in their room and grabbed the dark scarf he used as a blindfold, his swimsuit, and the radio alarm clock that they'd bought on their last trip through Salem. In the bathroom, he gave Steve the radio to plug in, and then closed and locked the door. He undressed and changed into his swimsuit, then checked the temperature of the water. It was a little warm, so he cooled off the water coming from the tap.

When the temperature was better, Jonathan got in the tub and wrapped the scarf around his eyes. He tied it behind his head and said, "Okay, baby. I'm ready."

"Okay," Steve said, turning on the radio and tuning it to static. He turned up the volume and Jonathan laid back, letting the water take him. There wasn't any salt in the water, so it wasn't as good as El's tub at home, but it worked well enough if he held onto the sides of the tub.

Jonathan dropped into the Inbetween, finding El and Will immediately there for him. He took hugs from each of them, before taking one of their hands in each of his. He showed them what had happened to Nancy, and what he'd felt when he looked for her the day before. 

"Just...help me find her?"

El and Will nodded in unison. They squeezed his hands.

Jonathan closed his eyes again, focusing on that Nancy-feeling in his head. With El and Will behind him, it was easier to find the limits of that empty place and push past it. It didn't hurt as bad to keep searching, to push further and further down, following her wherever she had gone.

_There_.

"She's in the woods," El said. "Can you feel where?"

"Yeah," Jonathan told her. "Stay with me?"

Will assured him, "We're here. We're not going anywhere."

Jonathan nodded and sat up. He took the blindfold off his eyes and told Steve, "Let's go."

Nodding, Steve wrapped a towel around Jonathan and pulled a shirt over his head. He made Jonathan put his shoes on, and then they were down in the car and driving.

His eyes closed as he honed in on that Nancy-feeling, Jonathan told Steve, "Go left."

"On J Street?" 

"Here," Jonathan agreed, eyes still closed. If he focused, he could see where Nancy was. "I think she's back on the same trail as yesterday," he told Steve. "Braddock Falls. She's looking for us."

"I know where that is," Steve told him. It didn't take long to get there.

Jonathan could feel Will and El still with him, holding him up, giving him their strength. He opened his eyes and got out of the car, heading up the trail. 

"Nancy?"

_Jonathan_?

Oh, god. He could hear her! 

"Jonathan?"

"Nancy?" he called, climbing up the trail as fast as his weary legs would take him. 

"Oh, my god! Jonathan! Where are you?" she called, and Jonathan pushed a little bit more, trying to hone in on her location.

There! He could see her at a dip in the trail! "Nancy!"

She looked up and saw him. "Jonathan!"

He ran down the trail to her, passing through a space that zapped at him and took a lot of extra effort to get through. Jonathan pulled the strength he needed from his siblings, and then he was through it and in Nancy's arms. "I found you," he cried, holding onto her tightly. Over his shoulder, he called, "Steve! I found her!"

Still holding Nancy close as she clung to him, Jonathan watched the top of the ridge. Where was Steve? He'd been right behind Jonathan. "Steve?"

That's when Jonathan made a horrible realization. "Oh, no."

"What is it?" Nancy asked him, touching Jonathan's face, like she wasn't quite sure it was him.

Jonathan closed his eyes. He tried to find Steve. He tried to find Will and El. He couldn't find _any_ of them.

"Where is Steve?" Nancy asked, coming with when Jonathan pulled her by the hand back down the trail. 

"He was right here. Oh, god. He was right here, Nancy!" Jonathan pressed his hand to his mouth and felt the first tears start to fall. "What the hell just happened?"

"Oh, shit," Nancy said, looking down the trail, then back at Jonathan. "Oh, fuck. I think you're trapped now, too."

"What do you mean, trapped?"

Nancy looked up at him and bit her lip. "I'm so sorry, Jonathan."

"Nancy?"


	11. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve copes poorly.

Steve followed Jonathan up the trail, not quite ready for it when Jonathan called out, "Nancy!" and ran ahead of him. Sure that he was going to have to carry Jonathan back down the trail like he had yesterday, Steve hurried to catch up. He got to a high point in the trail just in time to see Jonathan disappear through an invisible curtain. 

"No!" Steve cried out, running after him. When he got to the point where Jonathan had disappeared, there was nothing. No one.

Steve dropped to his knees. "Fuck!" He wiped his eyes and called out, "Jonathan, you idiot! Where are you?"

Shaking his head and feeling so damn lonely, Steve said, "Don't fucking do this to me, man. I can't… I can't do this without you."

There was no answer. Steve pressed his hands to his face and let himself fall apart. After all, if they were both gone, there was no reason for Steve to keep himself together. 

No reason at all.

He must have sat there in the dirt, crying, for close to an hour before he heard footsteps coming up the trail. Steve sniffled and wiped the tears from his eyes, but he didn't bother standing up. What was the use? What was the point?

"There you are," said a voice, and he looked up to see both Mary Ann and Charlie looking down the trail at him. Mary Ann started walking toward him, saying, "Your family wouldn't stop calling until I agreed to come out here and find you." 

Steve sniffled and gave a little wave. He had to clear his throat before he could ask, "Did they say what happened?"

Her eyes sad, Mary Ann shook her head, "Just that you were out here all alone. They're worried about you."

_Even though I couldn't protect Jonathan and Nancy_?

Steve's sobs came back, and he hid his head in his arms again.

"Oh, sweetie," Mary Ann said, crouching down next to him and putting her arm around his shoulders. "What happened to the others? Jonathan and Nancy?"

Steve gestured to the spot he was sitting in front of. "Fuck if I know. The forest swallowed them both up. Pfft. Gone."

"Oh," she said, looking over her shoulder at Charlie. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

"But…" Charlie said, taking a few steps closer. "How? Jonathan was still here after yesterday... I _saw_ him."

Steve narrowed his eyes at Charlie. "You tell me. Jonathan seemed to think you knew more about this than you were saying."

"I don't," she assured him. "I really don't know what's going on. I just…" She looked down, picking at her painted-black fingernails. "I felt bad for sending you guys out here yesterday."

Mary Ann gasped. "Charlie! Why would you do that? You know what yesterday was!"

"That family who stayed with us," Charlie told her. "The one with the kid. They came out here for one last hike."

"We thought we could get to them in time," Steve told Mary Ann. "It was stupid."

Mary Ann made a sympathetic little noise. Then she held her hand out to Steve. "Well, come on, then. It won't do anyone any good to have you catch a cold sitting in the dirt like this."

Steve wanted to ask her if she really thought there was any meaning left to Steve's life without the others, but he knew that would just make her fret over him more. "You said my family called?" he asked as he took her hand and got to his feet.

"Wouldn't stop calling, actually," Charlie said, gesturing Steve to walk ahead of her down the trail. "Your mom is really pushy."

Swallowing back more tears, Steve said, "Yeah, she is."

"Let's get you back to the house," Mary Ann insisted. "You can call her back. I'm sure she'll tell you what to do next."

"She will," Steve said, nodding. He wondered how soon she could get on a plane. He really needed Joyce to come hold him and tell him what to do.

He felt lost.

And alone.

So alone.

~*~

"So far," Nancy said, showing Jonathan the map, "these are the boundaries of the enclosed area. Or, at least these are the places where my compass starts to deviate away from true north."

Nodding, Jonathan looked over the map. "You did all this yourself?"

"Yeah." Nancy leaned her head against Jonathan's shoulder. "I didn't have anything else to do."

"No, what I mean," he said, his finger tracing over all the pencil marks she'd made, and the rough curve that connected them, "is how did you do all of this in a single day?"

"A day?" Nancy looked at Jonathan, trying to figure out what he was talking about. "Jonathan, I've been here for almost a month."

"A _month_?" Jonathan asked. "No. I just lost you yesterday. I took a night to recover, and then El and Will helped me find you. It was a little less than a day."

Nancy turned away from him and glowered. "God, time _is_ screwy here! No wonder no one would tell me what day it was!" She took her notebook out of her bag and showed him the inside of the front cover. "I've been making a new hatch mark for every day. Twenty-seven days, Jonathan. I've been stuck here for Twenty-seven days."

Jonathan's eyes went wide with horror. "I'm so sorry," he said, pulling Nancy close. "I swear, I almost found you right away. I almost did, but I … I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough."

"But…" Nancy gestured down the trail the way he'd come. "What about Steve? Can you find him? Can you get us back to him?"

"I…" Jonathan closed his eyes. "I can't…" He shook his head. "I need to rest. It took a lot out of me to come find you."

Nancy nodded. "Yeah. Okay. That's okay. I suppose…" She thought about the twenty-seven hatch marks on her notebook, compared to Jonathan's one day. "I suppose we've got more time on this end."

"Yeah," he said softly, pressing a kiss to her hair. 

"I missed you so much," she told Jonathan, holding him close and pressing her nose to his neck. "It was like before, when you and Steve went to Springfield, and I was all alone."

"Hey, it's okay," Jonathan told her, kissing her. "It's going to be okay. We'll figure this out."

Nancy nodded. "We'll figure this out."

~*~

Jonathan followed Nancy back to Cedarville, growing more and more weary with every step. "How much farther is it?" 

"We're almost there," Nancy assured him, squeezing Jonathan's hand. "I'm sorry. I've been hiking all over these hills for a month. I forgot that it starts out this hard."

Jonathan looked down at Nancy's legs. "Oh, wow."

"What?" she asked, stopping and following his line of sight.

Jonathan ducked down a little, putting his hand on Nancy's thigh and measuring with his hand. "Your leg muscles got so big!"

Nancy snorted a little and batted Jonathan's hand away. "Don't you know it's impolite to mention the size of a girl's thighs?”

"But it's all muscle," Jonathan pointed out, smiling a little and kissing her cheek. Then he pictured what that would be like, how strong she would be moving above him. He wondered if Steve would like it too, only to have to choke back tears when he realized that Steve wasn't here with them. He was still alone, on the other side of whatever that boundary had been.

"Town is just up here," Nancy told Jonathan. "I've been staying with Alexis."

"Alexis?" Jonathan asked. "As in, Alexis Breckinridge?"

Nancy nodded. "Yeah. There are several people here who were on the list. And then a few others who I'm having trouble pinning down. They call themselves 'The Trapped'."

_And now I'm one of them_ , Jonathan thought, letting Nancy take his hand and pull him into one of the buildings. 

"Alexis!" she called as they went into a little store filled with shelves. A quick look at the items on the shelves as they passed told Jonathan this was some sort of grocery or convenience store. "Alexis!"

"Nancy!" said a woman as she came out of the back room carrying a box. "You're back early." When she saw Jonathan, she stopped, setting the box on the floor at her feet. "Who's this?"

"Jonathan," Nancy told her with a bright smile. 

Alexis looked him over and asked, " _Your_ Jonathan?" Nancy nodded, and Alexis looked at him like he had three heads. "But how?"

Nancy met Jonathan's eyes and shrugged. "She already knows about the weirdness of this place. You might as well tell her."

Jonathan shrugged right back. "Okay." He reached forward, shaking Alexis' hand. "I have, um," he looked at Nancy and got another nod from her. "I have _abilities_."

"Special abilities," Nancy clarified. "He found me."

"Yeah, but I lost Steve in the process," Jonathan reminded Nancy. Yes, he was happy to be with Nancy, but losing Steve was still a much fresher pain for him than it obviously was for her.

"But if you got here without the phenomenon," Nancy pointed out, “maybe that means you can get us back, too.”

“Maybe,” Jonathan said.

Alexis gaped at Jonathan. “Really?”

“I needed my siblings to help me get here,” Jonathan insisted. “I’m sure I’ll need their help to get back, too.”

“And they also have _abilities_?” Alexis asked, to which Jonathan nodded. 

Turning to Nancy, he asked, “Is there, like, food? Water? Someplace to rest?”

“Oh, my god, yes,” she said, taking Jonathan’s hand. “I’ll bring Jonathan to meet the others in the morning, alright?”

Alexis nodded. “Okay. See you later!”

“Later!” Nancy called, leading Jonathan out of the store. “The house is close,” she assured him, leading him down a narrow road that branched away from the town square.

It didn’t seem very close, but eventually they got to a little cabin. It had a main room and two bedrooms, and Nancy set her shoes and bag in the one on the right. She made Jonathan a sandwich and gave it to him, along with a glass of milk, and one of water. “Is this okay? I’ve kind of been bumming off Alexis since I got here.”

“It’s fine,” Jonathan told her, finishing the food quickly. “I’m just…” He sighed, pulling Nancy until she sat on his lap and wrapped her arms around him. “When I tried to find you by myself yesterday, I pushed too hard. I bled pretty badly, and I’m still recovering.”

“Like at the water tower?” Nancy asked him. 

“Not quite that bad,” Jonathan insisted. “But yeah.”

Nancy kissed him before getting up and leading him toward the bedroom. “Come lay down. You need to rest and get stronger if we’re going to get out of here.”

“Okay,” Jonathan said, stripping down to his shirt and underwear and crawling into a bed that smelled like Nancy, but not like him or Steve. He thought it would be too weird, that he wouldn’t fall asleep, but Nancy ran her hands through his hair and held him tightly.

He fell asleep.

~*~

Back in the house, wrung out and feeling so incredibly stupid, Steve picked up the kitchen phone and called home. 

On the second ring, Joyce picked up, “Hello?”

“Mom, it’s Steve. I– I…” He shook his head, unable to get the words out. 

Mary Ann directed him into a chair and set a glass of water in front of him. 

“Oh, Steve,” Joyce said, her tone full of love and worry. “I’m glad you’re okay. When the kids lost contact with Jonathan… They needed you to know you’re not alone, okay?”

“But I am, Mom!” he said. “I am. Nancy and Jonathan both… They both…”

“Hey. Don’t give up, alright? In this family we are not quitters and we don’t give up.”

“Am I even still part of the family?” Steve asked. “I mean, with Jonathan… _gone_ –”

“Steven, stop being stupid,” Joyce said, her tone sharp. “Of course you are. Forever, alright? No matter what happens, you’re always a part of this family.”

Steve nodded, more relieved than he was willing to admit. “Okay. Okay.”

“Now, Jim and the kids will be there Wednesday night. Would it help you to stay busy? Can you find them someplace to stay?”

Sniffling and pushing at his wet nose with his hand, Steve asked, “How many kids is he bringing?”

“Just three. Dustin and Lucas are both at camp, and Max’s parents wouldn’t let her go.”

“Okay. Hop and the little trio. Got it.”

Joyce laughed softly. “Little trio?”

“Nevermind,” Steve insisted. “Are you coming out?”

“I couldn’t get a flight until Thursday, okay, baby? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Okay, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you too, Steve,” she insisted, as fierce as ever. “Don’t ever forget that, okay?”

“Okay,” he nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

After he said his goodbyes, and then ate the soup Mary Ann put in front of him, Steve asked her, “My family is coming into town. Mine and Jonathan’s. Are you all booked up Wednesday and Thursday?”

“Yes,” Mary Ann told him. “But I’ll ask around. A few people have cabins in the woods that they rent out when they aren’t using them. Does that sound like something they’d be interested in?”

Steve nodded. 

“How many people are coming?”

Steve counted it up, “Mom and Dad. El, Will, Mike, and Jenny. So, six. Plus, I’ll probably stay with them, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” she assured him. “Times like this, it’s important to be with family.”

Steve nodded, and tried to take another bite of soup. His family couldn’t get there fast enough.

~*~

Jonathan woke up crying, Steve’s name on his lips. 

“Shh,” Nancy whispered in his ear. “It’s alright. You’re alright.”

“Dream,” he told Nancy, unable to find the right words to describe the return of an old nightmare. “I had him… I had his hands, but he…”

“I know,” Nancy said, nodding against Jonathan’s shoulder, then reaching up and kissing him. 

Jonathan poured himself back into that kiss. He pulled Nancy close, running his hand down her body, pulling her thigh up over his hip. “Need…” he whispered against her lips. “Nance?”

“Yeah,” she told him, taking off her shirt and panties. Jonathan got his own underwear off, and then he was pulling her on top of him. “I love you,” she said, kissing him again, grinding down against him. 

“I love you, too,” he insisted, pulling Nancy’s body close and her emotions even closer. Jonathan shuddered underneath her as she pushed her hands into his hair and licked into his mouth. “Need you,” he told her. “Please. Fuck me.”

“Can I touch you?” Nancy asked, kissing Jonathan again.

He nodded. “Y-yeah. _Please_.”

She wrapped her hand around his cock and he had to think hard that he _was_ awake and it _was_ Nancy touching him. But then she slipped him into her wet pussy, sliding her hands up his chest as she slowly worked her way down onto him. When she encircled his wrists with her hands and held them down against his pillow, Nancy asked again, “Is this okay? Is this what you need, baby?”

“Yesssss,” Jonathan sighed, relaxing under her. He tilted his chin up and Nancy kissed his neck, sucking at the skin as she raised her hips and brought them down with a sharp snap. “Oh!”

“You feel so good,” she told him, rolling her hips again. “I missed you so much.”

Jonathan felt the echoes of Nancy’s pleasure as she rolled her hips again. “I’m yours,” he told her, planting his feet and thrusting up a little bit the next time she dropped down. “Nancy!”

As she sped up, Nancy’s hands around his wrists tightened. Jonathan let her take him, let her pull his orgasm out of him, riding him fast and sharp until he hissed, “Okay, enough. Enough!”

She made a frustrated sound, so as soon as she let his wrists go, Jonathan urged her to lie back on the bed. He drove two of his fingers into her and got his mouth on her clit, licking and sucking until she squealed into her pillow and pulsed around him. 

Jonathan wiped his sticky fingers on the sheets and went up to Nancy, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close. “Love you,” she murmured, kissing his jaw again. 

He turned enough to kiss Nancy’s lips. “I love you, too.”

Trying not to think about Steve’s absence, Jonathan buried his face in Nancy’s hair and it tickled, but she smelled enough like home that he fell back asleep.


	12. The Newspaper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan makes a startling discovery.

Nancy woke up held loosely in Jonathan’s arms. She turned, a smile on her face, and stopped, realizing that even though Jonathan was here, Steve wasn’t. She’d been expecting to see him at Jonathan’s back, taking up more of the bed than he should have been and snoring softly.

Jonathan didn’t snore, at least not unless he had a cold or something. He slept almost silently, and it always reminded her of before, when he would slink around at school not talking to anyone. 

As the years had gone by, he’d gotten more confident. He spoke more, to her and Steve, but also to strangers. He took up more space than he used to, his shoulders broader and less hunched than he used to keep them. But asleep like this? Silent and curled in around Nancy, his face soft and relaxed? He looked younger. Like he used to as a boy. 

Except, it had been a couple days since Jonathan’s last shave. The stubble on his face made him look more grown-up. Less boyish. 

Nancy loved him either way. 

She leaned in and kissed Jonathan, making him stir a little bit, before she sat up and stretched. She was really wet between her legs, and that’s when she remembered. 

“Oh, shit.”

“Mmm?” Jonathan asked, turning more toward her and rubbing his face against the pillows. 

“I can’t believe I forgot!”

“Forgot what, Nancy?” Jonathan asked, his eyes blinking open and his hand on her back. 

Sighing, she looked away as she told him, “I don’t have my pills here. I left my purse behind at Mary Ann’s when we hurried out into the woods.”

“Your pills?” he asked, sitting up and putting his hand on her back. “Which–”

“Birth control,” she admitted, finally letting herself look over at him. 

Jonathan’s eyes went wide, probably as he remembered what they’d done the night before. “Oh! Oh, god! I’m sorry! It didn’t even occur to me that you might…”

“With being trapped here by myself, without you guys, it didn’t seem important to replace them. Fuck, we’re going to have to be careful,” she told him. “Get condoms or something.”

“It’ll be okay,” Jonathan told her, pulling her into his arms. “We’ll figure it out.”

Nancy nodded. “Yeah, I know we will. I know.”

~*~

Showered, shaved, fed, and dressed in clothes borrowed from one of Nancy’s new friends, Jonathan felt a little bit better. He was still heartsick about leaving Steve behind, but maybe he could figure out a way to get himself and Nancy home. 

Looking at Nancy’s map, he asked her, “Which edge of the boundary is closest to where we are now?”

“This one,” Nancy said, pointing at the map before taking a sip of her coffee. “Do you want to go see what it does?”

“Yeah,” he told her. “If we’re ever going to have a chance at figuring this out, I need to go see it.”

“Sure,” she said. “Wanna just help with the dishes and stuff? That’s kind of my deal with Alexis. She lets me stay here. I take care of the place so I don’t have to get a different job.”

“I can do my share,” Jonathan told her. “Of course.”

After everything was set, Nancy laced up her hiking boots. Jonathan put on his sneakers, and then they were off. 

“How far is it?” Jonathan asked her, settling his borrowed canteen over his shoulder. 

“Well, it’s about a mile as the crow flies, but more like two, taking the trails to get there,” Nancy said, tying up her hair and then pulling a baseball cap over her head. “It’s this way.”

As they walked, Jonathan caught Nancy’s hand. “I’m sorry again,” he told her. “About last night. I was being stupid and needy.”

“It’s not stupid to get your needs met,” Nancy insisted. “Especially by the people who love you. I just…” She shook her head. “Next time we’ll have to remember a condom.”

“Or do other stuff,” Jonathan suggested, squeezing Nancy’s hand again. “It’s never been just the two of us for this long before.”

Nancy nodded. “Hopefully it doesn’t take us another month to get out of here.”

Jonathan didn’t want to dash her hopes just yet. If time ran a lot faster here, and it was going to take Hop and the kids another few days to get to Oregon, he and Nancy could be looking at _months_ , plural, before they had any help getting out.

It took about forty-five minutes of walking before Nancy said, “Here. This is where the compass starts to change.”

Jonathan took the compass out of his pocket and opened it. He held it out on his hand, watching as it steadied. 

“Okay, so right now, that peak over there, way off in the distance, is at true north, right?” Nancy asked him.

Jonathan followed where the compass was pointing and nodded. 

“Keep the compass out and just walk straight down the pathway.”

Jonathan did as she said, asking, “How far should I go?”

“A few dozen steps usually does it,” Nancy told him. After a minute, she said, “Okay. Now where is north pointing?”

“To the left of the peak,” Jonathan said. “Pretty far left. That’s weird.”

“That’s Cedarville.”

With a little laugh, Jonathan asked, “Hey, did you find who wrote that history book? Ask them why they left out all this weird shit?”

“No,” Nancy said, sighing. “I haven’t made too many inroads with the not-trapped people who live here. Apparently, they’re slow to warm up to newcomers.”

“Hmm,” Jonathan replied, so Nancy knew he was listening. He walked back up the trail until his compass was pointing at the right peak. Then he walked a little more. He handed the compass to Nancy, saying, “Here, hold this, please,” and then he closed his eyes. 

Taking a deep breath before letting it out, Jonathan cleared his mind. He held his hand out and closed his eyes. As he walked forward, he tried to feel whatever it was that bent the path. 

With his eyes closed he could definitely sense it better. It was a subtle feeling, but strong. Like a curving wall made out of foam rubber. Instead of following along with the curve, Jonathan took a deep breath and pushed _through_ it. It took some effort and his nose started bleeding, but then he was through. 

Opening his eyes, Jonathan looked back and was relieved to see Nancy still on the path behind him. “Can you still see and hear me?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” she said, but when she took a few steps toward him, she ended up veering to the side. “This is ridiculous!”

Jonathan reached back through the boundary, clasping Nancy’s hand in his. He closed his eyes and tried to pull her through, but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t get even one finger of hers past the boundary. 

He stopped trying, panting and catching his breath. Then he asked Nancy, “What do you want me to do? Come back in there with you? Or go see how far I can get?”

“Go take a look around,” Nancy insisted, wiping a tear from her cheek, but otherwise determined. “I wouldn’t interact with too many people, if you can help it, but if you can get a sense of what’s going on out there, it would answer a lot of my questions.”

Jonathan nodded. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He jogged down the trail, eventually finding himself on a road he recognized. It was the road into Logan. He walked down that quickly too, not wanting to leave Nancy waiting for too long, not wanting to lose her again. 

Main Street looked a little different that he was used to. Mary Ann’s house was a different color. Ed’s was not a restaurant. It was a little general store. Was this some sort of weird alternate universe that he and Nancy had gotten sucked into? Jonathan went over to the general store, seeing a stack of newspapers. 

_The Salem Gazette_

The paper on the top of the stack listed its date as May 16th, 1964.

_1964_?

Jonathan paged through the stack of papers, just to make sure these weren’t vintage or anything. The paper felt supple, not dry and brittle as if it had been stored for twenty years. And all of the papers in the stack had the same date. 

May 16th, 1964

Noting the fifteen cent price on the top of the newspaper, Jonathan picked up the top copy. He dug the change out of his pocket, found the oldest coins he had, and put them on the counter, leaving before the clerk realized that they were all at least ten years too new. 

Then Jonathan left town. He jogged back up the road as fast as he could, finding the right trail and climbing it until he found Nancy, pacing on the other side of the boundary. Jonathan closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and pushed through it again. 

“I found out why no one wants to tell you the date,” he said, returning Nancy’s greeting hug. He handed her the paper, saying, “This is today’s.”

Nancy scanned through the headlines quickly before returning her gaze to the top of the page. “Wait,” she said, reading it again. “1964? We’re in 1964?”

“I think so,” Jonathan told her. “We haven’t even been born yet.”

“My parents haven’t even _met_ yet,” Nancy said, her eyes wide. “You said my twenty-seven days was about one of yours?”

Jonathan nodded. “What are you thinking?”

“How long until we catch up with 1987? Is it going to be all twenty three years for us? Or will we go past it and I still won’t be able to cross?”

“I don’t know,” Jonathan told her, holding onto Nancy and squeezing her tightly, willing her not to start panicking. “All I know is that I found you from 1987. El and Will are so strong together. They’ll find us. We just have to wait it out.”

“I’m not exactly good at waiting,” Nancy said. She looked him over and then asked, “How are you feeling? If we put you in a bath, could you find El sooner rather than later?”

“I don’t know,” Jonathan told her, taking Nancy’s hand and heading back up the trail. “It’s worth a try.”

~*~

_June 22nd, 1987_

There was a knock on Steve’s door, and when he answered it, Charlie was there. She held up a bottle of brown liquor and said, “I know you guys have some weird thing about alcohol, but…”

“Fuck it,” Steve said, taking the bottle from her hands and drinking from it straight. He winced at the taste, but managed to swallow it down. Looking at Charlie, Steve asked, “So, am I drinking this alone, or…”

She took the bottle back from him and stepped into the room. It was kind of cluttered, but Steve had been nervously cleaning and putting shit away for the past ten minutes, just to have something to do while he waited. Charlie took a drink and sat down on the bed before offering the bottle back to him. 

Steve took it and sat down beside her. 

“I’m sorry about your friends,” she said, as Steve took another drink. 

When was the alcohol going to kick in? When was this painful ache in his chest going to ease up?

“Thanks,” he said to her. He drank again before passing the bottle back. “I should have known this would end this way. The two of them always run headfirst into this sort of bullshit.”

“They’ve disappeared _before_?” Charlie asked with a little laugh. Oh, she meant it as a joke.

Feeling truthful, Steve said, “Jonathan got taken back in December. Kidnapped.”

“Jesus, really?” Charlie asked, passing back the bottle. 

As Steve sighed and nodded, he started to feel a little warmer. A little flushed. He took another drink. “Our lives are _not_ boring. I guess I figured they would be smarter this time. Or, _we_ would be. _I_ should have been.”

He took a long drink, the alcohol burning as it went down his throat. “Guess I’m dumber than I thought I was.”

Charlie moved a little closer to him, putting her arm around his shoulders. “It sucks losing people,” she said. “It sucks being the one they left behind.”

“It really, really does,” Steve agreed, leaning his head on Charlie’s shoulder and sighing. He felt a little better, maybe. Sad, but in a floaty sort of way. In a way where he might actually sleep, at least for a little while.

Charlie took the bottle, drank from it, and then set it on the nightstand.

“Steve?” she asked, her voice soft. She backed away a bit, so Steve had to lift his head and look at her. 

“What?” he asked, just as softly. 

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to Steve’s for half a second before he was able to turn his head away. “No, don’t do that,” he told her, putting his head in his hands. “I’m not… I’m not for you.”

“What if I think you are?” she asked.

“I still don’t want you to kiss me.” He finally looked over at Charlie, and noticed her confusion. “You really couldn’t tell I’m with someone?”

“Oh,” Charlie said, her voice cutting the word short. “But who? Nancy is with Jonathan. I saw them kissing.”

Figuring that telling wouldn’t matter too much, since they weren’t here, and Steve didn’t know when they would be back, or even if they _could_ come back, he said, “I’m with both of them, Charlie. Nancy and Jonathan. They’re my… they’re mine. And I’m _theirs_. Okay?”

“That makes…” she said, looking around the room. “A lot of sense.”

“I’m not a cheater,” Steve insisted. “Even if they’re not here and I’m all alone, my heart belongs to them.”

“What if they never come back?”

“It’s gonna take longer than one fucking afternoon to get over it,” he told her, sighing and taking the bottle back from her. He really didn’t want to be conscious anymore. “And even then it still wouldn’t work between us,” he told her. 

“Why?”

“Because you remind me too much of my mom. And my little brother.” He shook his head and gave the bottle back to Charlie. “It would be too weird.”

She nodded, taking a drink. She looked away from Steve and wiped her face. Oh, shit. She was crying. 

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Sorry,” he told her.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, it’s my fault. I should have known no one would want me. Nobody ever does.”

“That can’t be true,” Steve insisted. “You’re gorgeous, especially when you’re not scowling.” He nudged her arm with his elbow. “I bet if you left this town and went someplace bigger, the men would be falling all over themselves to date you.” Trying to get a read on Charlie, he said, “Some of the women, too.”

She blushed and didn’t look at him, focusing on the hem of her shorts. Ah, that confirmed it. 

“Is it just women, or is it both?” he asked carefully. 

“I don’t know,” she told him. “Probably both. I _did_ love my husband.”

“It’s okay,” he insisted, putting his arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay to be queer. Bisexual.” Steve squeezed her a little bit. “I am.”

“It’s not okay _here_ ,” Charlie insisted, practically spitting. 

“So go somewhere else,” Steve told her. “If this place doesn’t appreciate you, go somewhere that will. Salem. Or, better yet, Portland.”

Shaking her head, Charlie took another drink with a wince. “I tried that. The city was too _much_. I hated it.” She looked over at Steve. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be dumping this on you. I was trying to cheer you up.”

Steve laughed sadly. “Cheer isn’t exactly your strong suit, is it?”

“No,” she said, returning his laugh and taking another drink. “No, it’s really not.”

~*~

_May 16, 1964_

After showing him the boundary, Nancy brought Jonathan to meet the others. “Mr. Summers,” she said, introducing the elder of the community. “This is Jonathan. He came here to find me.”

A little gasp from the corner of the room drew Mr. Summers’ attention. “What do you mean, he came here? We aren’t scheduled to have another member of our community for…” He looked over to MacIver warily.

“It’s fine,” Nancy told them. “I know time is moving differently here than it does out there. I also know that it’s 1964, even though it’s supposed to be 1987.” She narrowed her eyes at Mr. Summers. “What year was it when you got here? What year did you come from? When was the next person supposed to get here? Did you all arrive in the order you left?” Turning to MacIver, Nancy demanded, “Were you telling the truth when you told me you were Buck Harrell?”

“Slow down!” Mr. Summers said with a pained expression. He turned to MacIver and said, “I can see why the sheriff sent her.”

Then he said to Nancy, “Tell us how he got here,” he pointed to Jonathan, “and we’ll answer all your questions.”

Nancy sighed. She turned to Jonathan and told him, “How much you want to say is up to you.”

Jonathan nodded. “I have,” he paused, clearing his throat. “I have _abilities_. Like, _interdimensional_ abilities. I followed Nancy here."

"What does _that_ mean?" Kirby asked. "Interdimensional?"

Nancy watched Jonathan sigh and then steel himself. He put his hand out and _pulled_ one of the books off the table in front of them and into his hands. "Shit like that." He set the book down on the table. "If I know a person, I can find them. And apparently, I can push past the barrier keeping the rest of you trapped here."

"Can you get the rest of us out of here, too?" Alexis asked.

"No," Nancy told her, before Jonathan could say something about maybe, if he just tried hard enough. She didn't want him to hurt himself, or sacrifice himself in any way. Not yet. Not until they knew more. "But he might be able to get in contact with others. Get some help from them."

Mr. Summers nodded. "Okay, Nancy. Okay. Now for your questions, one at a time."

Nodding, Nancy asked, "How often do people appear here?"

"It's about 26 months in between appearances."

"Twenty-six…" Nancy looked over at Alexis. "You've been here for two years?"

Alexis nodded sadly. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to give you more information than you could handle."

Jonathan scoffed, giving Nancy a look. 

"What?" she asked him.

"They don't know you at all," he told her. "I've never run across any information you _haven’t_ been able to handle. Not yet.”

Nancy smiled at Jonathan and squeezed his hand. Then she turned back to Mr. Summers. “Did you arrive here in the same order you left the other place?”

Looking at the others, Mr. Summers nodded. “As far as we’ve been able to tell, yes.”

“The first person to go back. Kent Michaelson. When did he arrive here?”

A sad expression on his face, Mr. Summers said, “November, 1920.”

“So the town would have been here by then,” Nancy said, nodding and thinking to herself. “Did the people take care of him? Bring him what he needed?”

“To an extent,” Mr. Summers told her. "He was still alive when Angelica Braddock arrived in January of ‘23. But, he was working for the Millers. Logging within the boundary area, and he had an accident. They tried to bring him to the doctor, but ultimately the doctor had to come to him. By then it was too late.”

“Oh, the doctor!” Nancy cried, looking around at everyone. “What happens if one of us needs a doctor?”

“I’m trained,” said one of the men. She hadn’t noticed him before, but now that she knew to look at people aged further than she would have expected, she recognized him as Miles Lyton, Morgan Wyatt’s boyfriend. "I'm trained as a medic. I can stabilize people while we wait for the doctor to come up from Logan."

"Well, that's something, at least," Nancy said.

Jonathan spoke up then. "How many people know about all this?"

"Yeah," Nancy added. "Is it everyone in town?"

Mr. Summers nodded. "Everyone here in Cedarville. A few people down in Logan, who help us out."

Nancy took a long look at Mr. Summers. "You had a different name before you got here, didn't you?"

"Stuart Myers," he told her. "I've been here a _long_ time."

Nancy didn’t know what else to say, so she told him, “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, dear. You’re sweet.” He nodded to Jonathan. “I can see why you chose to come after her.”

Jonathan took Nancy’s hand, and he met her eyes when he said, “It wasn’t a choice. Not really.”

Nancy nodded, her chest tight with love and regret.

~*~

_May 30, 1964_

Jonathan was out chopping wood for Jasper Roundtree to kill some time and earn a few bucks while he waited for something to happen. 

And then he heard his sister's voice.

_Jonathan?_

He dropped the axe and sat down, closing his eyes and dropping into the Inbetween.

_El?_

When she appeared before him, her image shimmered, unstable like a TV slightly out of tune. "Nancy?"

"She's fine. She's with me," Jonathan insisted

"Where are you?"

"Cedarville," he told her, trying to grasp her hand so he could share his memories, but the connection was too weak. "El!"

She opened her mouth, as if to speak again, but then the connection severed and Jonathan was alone. Again.

He took a few minutes to calm back down. This was a good sign. They'd been able to make a connection. A weak one, to be sure, but a connection just the same.

It was on Jonathan to survive and wait for the next opportunity. It had been two weeks. That wasn't even half a day's time on the other side, according to Nancy's math. El wasn't even in Oregon yet. It was just going to take more time.

After finishing the job and getting paid, Jonathan went back to Alexis' cabin. He found Nancy there, her notes spread across the kitchen table, numbered pages full of her precise handwriting cascading down onto the floor.

"What are you doing?" Jonathan asked her, giving her a kiss on the cheek before stooping to retrieve some of the pages from the floor.

"I'm writing it all down," Nancy told him. "In order. The whole story of this place. I'm hoping if I do this, if I finish it," she sighed and looked up at him, "that I'll see what it is I'm missing."

Jonathan nodded and kissed her again. "El made contact."

"What, really?" Nancy asked, pushing away from the table and standing up. "Where? When?"

"About an hour ago," Jonathan told her, "while I was over at Mr. Roundtree's place. It was only a few seconds before it broke again, but she was there. She's looking for us."

"Maybe," Nancy said, looking to the bathroom, "you should get in the bath early today. In case she's still looking."

It made sense, so Jonathan told Nancy, "Yeah. I'll do that."

He'd been spending time in the bath – in the Inbetween – every night, trying to contact home. So far, he'd been unable to get more than momentary glances at any of his family members, and sometimes it felt more like he was rediscovering his own memories, rather than establishing a meaningful connection.

Today felt different.

He ran the bath and got in, wearing his underwear and undershirt, tying a dark shirtsleeve around his eyes as a blindfold. The Inbetween was as easy for him to reach now as breathing. His nose didn't even bleed if he didn't push very far.

Nancy was worried about something – it had been building for a few days. Maybe after this he would ask her about it.

Pushing himself further, Jonathan found not El, but Will. "Will!"

"Jonathan!" he replied, his voice distorted as if he was underwater. El joined him a second later. "Where did you say you are?"

"Cedarville," Jonathan told them. "Steve knows where it is."

"But you're so far away," El insisted, her voice so soft Jonathan could barely hear her. "It's so hard to reach you!"

"I'm in 1964," he told them, and it felt like yelling over a canyon trying to get them to hear him. "Nancy and I are stuck in the past!"

Will asked something like, "In the past?"

"Yes!"

"Jona–" El cried but the connection slipped and the ache in Jonathan's head told him they weren't getting it back anytime soon.

Jonathan got out of the tub, took off his wet underwear and shirt, and grabbed his towel to dry off. The connection might not have been perfect, but it was progress, anyway. He left the bathroom to go tell Nancy what had happened.


	13. Repercussion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Charlie go looking for clues around Cedarville, while Nancy extracts a promise from Jonathan.

_June 23, 1987_

Steve was passed out, starfished across the entire bed and still wearing his clothes, when someone shook him awake. 

“Steve? Steve!”

“Nancy?” he asked, his eyes dried out and blurry.

“No, it’s Charlie,” she said, and that made more sense, because Nancy wasn’t here. Steve’s stomach clenched unpleasantly at the thought. “Wake up. Your mom is on the phone.”

“Shit, okay,” he said, rolling out of bed and stumbling toward the stairs. It had been _years_ since he’d been this hungover. He got down to the kitchen and picked up the phone from the table. “Mom?”

“Hey, Steve. How are you doing?”

“Only made one unwise choice last night,” he told her with a sad little chuckle, sitting down at the kitchen table and pressing his fingers into his eyes. “So, I guess, better than expected?”

“Good,” Joyce replied. “The twins called,” she said, and Steve wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her call them twins before. “They made contact with Jonathan last night.”

Steve was glad he was sitting down. “Yeah? Is he okay? What about Nancy?”

“He says they’re both safe,” she told him and Steve put his head down on the cool kitchen table in relief. “They’re apparently in Cedarville? Do you know where that is?”

“It’s a ghost town up in the woods,” Steve told her. “What are they doing there?”

“I don’t know. Will said Jonathan was trying to tell them something else, too, but he couldn’t understand it.” Joyce shifted against the phone receiver. “They’re going to try again when they stop for the night tonight.”

“I’m talking to a guy about renting his cabin today,” Steve told her, checking the time on the kitchen clock and thanking his lucky stars that he’d made it a late afternoon meeting. “But before that, I’ll head out to Cedarville. See if I can find anything.”

“Don’t go out there by yourself, Steven,” she said. “Please promise me you won’t.”

“Mom…”

“Promise me,” she insisted, her voice as hard as he’d ever heard it. 

“Fine,” he relented, scrubbing his fingers back through his hair. “Fine. I won’t go by myself. I promise.”

“Thank you. And don’t worry. It won’t be too much longer until we’re all there to help.”

“I know,” he told her. Then he admitted, “It feels like the three of us should have been able to do this one thing without calling everyone here to help us, but…”

Joyce scoffed. “Oh, don’t go thinking that. Murray knew that when he was hiring you, he was hiring the whole family. I promise you he did.”

“Thanks,” Steve said, thinking of the way Murray had been so insistent on using the kids’ new measurement devices. “That helps, actually.”

“Call me later today, okay? Let me know how the lodging search goes.”

“Okay,” Steve agreed. “Bye, Mom.”

When Steve hung up the phone, he noticed Charlie hovering at the top of the stairs. “Hungover?” he asked her.

She started down the stairs and shrugged. “Just a little bit.”

“I’m more than a little bit,” he admitted, going to the fridge and taking out the package of bacon he’d bought a few days before. “I need coffee and grease. In that order.”

Charlie laughed, but she got the coffee maker brewing. “It’s too bad we missed breakfast at the main house. Tuesdays are waffle mornings.”

Steve groaned, pulling a pan out of the cupboard and putting it on the stove. “I’m never drinking with you again. You made me miss out on Mary Ann’s waffles.”

Charlie smiled. It was a rare sight, and nice to see, but it made him miss Jonathan and Nancy. Hell, it even made him miss Robin.

Steve wished she wasn’t at Langley for training this whole summer. He missed talking with her. She was supposed to call him the first of August, but other than that, she was incommunicado until September. 

So, Steve turned to Charlie. “When do you work?”

“Not until tomorrow.”

Nodding, he asked, “How do you feel about searching the woods a little bit today?”

Her eyes on the coffee pot while it brewed, Charlie asked, “What would we be looking for?”

“Fuck if I know,” Steve told her. “Some clue about what happened.”

She sighed. “I don’t like going up there.”

“But will you?”

She took so long responding that Steve seriously considered breaking his promise and going alone, but eventually, she nodded. “Yeah, okay. Looking for clues. Five bucks says we find way more bear scat than actual clues.”

“Scat as in…?”

“Shit,” she said with a nod, taking two mugs down from the cupboard. “Bear shit.”

“Yeah, I don’t need to know what that looks like,” Steve said, his stomach turning a little. He got the pan on the stove and started cooking, counting the seconds until the coffee was done. 

An hour later, Steve pulled up to the old town square. There was a big building in the middle, and it looked better than the houses he'd seen a few weeks ago, its roof and walls still intact. The windows were boarded over, as was the door.

Charlie leaned forward, looking out the windshield. "This place is so creepy. I hate it here."

"Let's look around," Steve said, getting out of the car and going to the trunk. He opened it and pulled out the bat he'd bought the week before from a sporting goods store in Portland. It didn't have nails in it, but he felt better with it resting on his shoulder. 

As he closed the trunk and Charlie caught sight of him, she asked, "Going out for softball?"

"You should have seen the one I had before," he told her, leading the way into the small, run-down town. 

"What are you expecting to find out here, anyway?" Charlie asked. "There's no one here. This place was shut down when I was a little kid."

"Then no one's gonna care if we poke around a little," Steve replied. There was a little corner store across the moss-covered street from the big building. The windows were still intact, and the door was closed. Maybe the stuff inside had been more protected from the elements than stuff in the other buildings around here. "Let's try in here."

~*~

_June 17th, 1964_

“Hey, Miles?” Nancy asked, approaching the medic as he loaded his pickup with supplies from Alexis’ shop. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure,” he said, pausing and wiping the sweat from his brow. Summer was really starting to hit Cedarville, and even this high up in the mountains, the heat was uncomfortable. “What’s going on?”

“I…” Jesus, maybe she should have practiced saying this out loud before this moment. She forced her breath out in a huff and took a new one. “I need to see a doctor. I figured as the town medic, you’d be the first person to talk to about it.”

“Feeling sick?” Miles asked, taking off his work gloves. “You look fairly healthy. Good color, not pale or anything.”

"No," Nancy told him, pressing her lips and moving a little closer. In a quiet voice, she said, "I might be pregnant."

His eyes widening, Miles said, "Oh."

Deciding to move right past the awkwardness, Nancy asked, "So, how does this work? Alexis' store doesn't have any tests I could take at home. Have they been invented yet?"

"I...don't actually know," Miles told her. "It hasn't come up since I've been here."

"But you can get the doctor to come see me?"

Miles nodded. Then he ran his tongue over his teeth. "He comes up here in the evenings, usually. Unless it's an emergency. We'll have to find a place where you can have some privacy."

Looking over her shoulder at Alexis in the shop, Nancy asked, "It's time for me and Jonathan to get our own place, isn't it?"

"I think Nelson might be willing to rent you his old cabin on the edge of town," Miles said, loading another box into his pickup. "He's kind of old-fashioned, though. He might not like the fact that you're not married."

Nancy scoffed and rolled her eyes. "I had enough problems with sexist assholes in the 80s. I can't believe I have to deal with it even worse, here in the 60s."

"Tell you what," he said. "You can use my place for your meeting with the doctor. Maybe it's nothing."

"Yeah, maybe it's nothing," Nancy agreed, even though she was pretty sure she was pregnant. "Thanks, Miles."

"You're welcome," he said, giving Nancy's shoulder an encouraging squeeze. "I'll let you know when the doctor's coming up."

~*~

_June 23, 1987_

"Oh, hey," Charlie called as Steve poked at the empty, dusty store shelves. "There's an office back here."

"Anything in it?" Steve asked, following the sound of Charlie's voice. 

"Just an old desk," she said, and when he passed through the doorway, he found her opening and closing the drawers of the desk. "Empty," she said when she closed the last drawer.

Steve was about to leave and go poke around in what he figured was probably a stockroom next to the office, when Charlie bent down and looked at the space between the desk and the wall. "I think there's something here. Help me move the desk."

"Sure," Steve said, pulling the desk away from the wall until Charlie could get behind it. 

She picked up what looked like a photograph and squinted at it before whispering, "What the hell?"

"What is it?" Steve asked, reaching for the photo. 

The office was a little dark, so Steve took it closer to the window as he looked it over. The photo showed the front porch of a small cabin in a wooded area, and two figures on the porch. One was looking off to the side, at something off camera. The other was giving a tight smile toward whoever took the picture.

Steve knew that smile. He knew that profile.

"It's them," he told Charlie, stumbling all the way out of the abandoned store to look at the photo in the brighter light of the outdoors. Now he was even more sure. "It's Nancy and Jonathan."

"That picture looks really old," Charlie told him. "How _could_ it be them?"

Steve shook his head, turning the photo over. "I don't know." 

It looked like there might have been something written on the back, but he couldn't make it out. Showing it to Charlie, he asked, "Can you read that?"

She took the photo back and squinted at it again, before shaking her head. "Whatever it was, it's too faded. I can't make it out either."

"Wait," Steve said, taking the photo from Charlie again. "I've seen this place before."

"Where?"

"I…" Steve wasn't quite sure he could put it into words quite yet. He went over to his car and pulled out the map of all the hiking trails, spreading it out on the hood of the car. When Charlie joined him, he pointed to the map told her, "We were over here when we first found this place. I think that's where the picture was taken."

Charlie pulled the map closer to herself, then said, "It's that way. Up that road, probably."

"Let's go." Steve took the map and folded it up as they walked. It only took about five minutes, and then they were in the clearing between the trees with the two abandoned cabins. Steve went to the one that was closer to the road, and stood in front of it, comparing it to the photo. Handing the picture to Charlie, he said, "Tell me this isn't the same place."

Charlie didn't take the photo, and when he looked over, she had her arms wrapped around herself and looked like she was about to cry.

"What?" Steve asked her. "What is it?"

"I _really_ don't like this place," she told him, shuddering and wiping a tear from her cheek. "Can we go?"

Steve took one last look at the picture and compared it to the cabin in front of him. They were definitely the same place. "Yeah," he told Charlie. "Yeah, we can go."

Without waiting for him, Charlie turned and started walking down the road, back to the car. He caught up to her and told her, "You know, Jonathan couldn't stand being in that cabin either."

"Weird," she said, not looking over at Steve.

Sure, she wasn't the most talkative person, and she'd bitched about coming out to the woods with him, but Charlie seemed like she'd been enjoying looking for clues, right up until they got to that cabin. Steve wondered if she wasn't a little bit like Jonathan, getting creeped out by the same place. They knew there were others around the country with abilities. Or with the capacity to learn them, anyway. Execugen had been finding and capturing them for at least the past ten years. 

"Hey," Steve told her, getting out in front of Charlie. "Whatever it is, you can tell me. I promise, you can trust me with it."

Charlie looked at him for a long moment before shaking her head. "No. It's nothing. Just my imagination. Let's get out of here."

He guessed she just wasn't ready to open up. Steve sighed and followed her. "Okay. Let's go."

~*~

_June 25th, 1964_

Jonathan lay in the bath, in the dark, trying to keep his mind open and awake. It had been three weeks since he’d last heard from his siblings, and the waiting was so goddamn hard. 

Nancy kept busy with her notes, interviewing as many people around town as would talk to her. Jonathan, on the other hand, had taken on just about any job offered to him. The wait was easier when he was too busy to think about it. 

Missing Steve was easier when he was too busy to think about it. 

He pushed and _there_ , caught a glimpse of El. _How close are you getting?_

_Just on the other side of the mountains_ , she replied. _We’ll be near you midday tomorrow_.

Jonathan figured that meant another month without speaking to her. Great. 

When the connection broke, Jonathan sighed and got out of the tub. He put on the pajamas he’d gotten as a hand-me-down from a guy named Tony, who had been trapped in Cedarville for over eleven years. They were a little threadbare in places, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. 

Back in the room he shared with Nancy, Jonathan found her sitting on the bed and counting the cash from their shared jar. 

“Here,” he said, picking up his wallet from where he’d left it and handing over the five dollar bill he’d earned that day. “What are we up to?”

“Ninety-three,” she told him. “And some change.” She stacked the bills together and rolled them up, then put them back in the jar with the coins. “Enough for first month’s rent on Nelson’s cabin. Almost enough for the second month, too. You know, except for food money.”

“Are we still going to go see it tomorrow?” Jonathan asked, taking the jar when she gave it to him and stashing it back under the box spring. 

Nancy nodded, but a quick read told him she was scared of something. 

Sitting down next to Nancy, Jonathan took her hands in his and said, “Whatever it is, just tell me, okay?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Sometimes you know too much," she said, the edge of her mouth twitching upward.

Jonathan returned her smile, saying, "But I don't know _what's_ bothering you, just that something _is_. Will you tell me? Please, sweetheart?"

Looking down, she nodded, but a tear fell onto her arm. Jonathan wondered if it had something to do with Steve.

It had been awhile since they'd talked about missing Steve. Talking about him hurt. Talking about anything from _before_ hurt, but talking about Steve hurt worse than everything else. They'd meant to leave their families behind for a new summer adventure. They hadn't meant to leave Steve behind, too. Sometimes Jonathan still looked for him, expecting him to be right there, laying in the bed or sitting at the table, or coming through the door.

Then, she said, "Well, the good news is that we don't have to worry about buying more condoms for awhile."

"What?" Jonathan asked, confused and not getting what she was hinting at.

Her eyes still down, not meeting Jonathan's, she said, "I'm pregnant."

"Oh," Jonathan replied, taking a few moments for the news to actually sink in. "Wait, really?"

Finally looking up at him, Nancy nodded. "I got a call back from the doctor today. He confirmed it."

The fear and fragility coming off her made Jonathan dizzy. Or maybe that was his realization that he had done this to her. He wanted to apologize, but he wasn't sure that was what she needed to hear at the moment. Instead, he asked, "What are you– I mean, what do you want to do?"

A sharp flare of anger preceded her glaring at him. "What _can_ I do about it, Jonathan? I'm stuck here, which means I'm stuck with it. There's no hospital. There's no law yet saying it's my right to end it, because we're stuck in the fucking dark ages. There's _nothing_ I can do."

"Jesus, Nancy," Jonathan whispered, pulling her into his arms. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"No," she replied, putting her arms around him and squeezing back. "Don't be sorry. It's my fault, too."

Jonathan nodded against her shoulder. "I'll take care of you," he insisted. "You know that, right? I'm here. I'm with you."

Nancy sighed. "I know." She shifted closer, putting her legs over his and curling up against his chest. "This wasn't how this was supposed to happen. Steve is supposed to be here. He's the one who wanted this."

"Maybe they'll find us before the baby comes," Jonathan told her. "Then he'll get to be there for everything."

Sniffling, Nancy said, "He'll be so happy."

"Yeah," Jonathan said, blinking back his own tears. "Yeah, he'll be so happy."

After sitting silently for a few moments, Nancy shifted until she was laying down, pulling Jonathan with her. She rested her head on Jonathan's shoulder. Then, out of the blue, she asked, "Will you marry me?"

"I will," he told her, without hesitation. "Of course I will, if that's what you want."

Her emotions still swirling around every which way, Nancy said, "I just want everyone here to recognize that we're family. If something happens to me–"

"Nancy," he sighed, stopping her. "You can't think like–"

"No, I _can_ ," she insisted, sitting up and looking down at him. "If we don't get out of here before the baby is born, I'll have to have it outside the hospital. I could die."

Jonathan bit the inside of his cheek and blinked back tears. "Please don't make me think about that happening. I can't. I won't survive it."

Her voice low and vicious, she said, " _Yes_ , you will! You're going to have to, Jonathan. You're this baby's father. You can't abandon it like that."

Maybe he was imagining things, but he heard in her words, _Like your father abandoned you_.

The comparison hurt worse than Jonathan thought it would. He was _nothing_ like Lonnie. Not now, not ever. Nodding and taking a moment to catch his breath, Jonathan said, "Okay. Okay. I promise, Nancy. I'll take care of you both. I promise."

With a sharp nod, Nancy said, "Okay. Good. Now say it in front of a judge."

The demand surprised Jonathan and he laughed, shaking his head and rolling his eyes at her. Sitting up, he kissed Nancy, and told her, "Whenever you want, sweetheart. I'm there."


	14. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wedding and an introduction.

_ July 1, 1964 _

"Okay," Tony said when Nancy let him into the two room cabin she and Jonathan had just moved into the day before. "I managed to make passable birth certificates for both of you, _Miss Curtis_." He handed her the paper, which listed her birth year as 1944, but preserved her December 15th birthday.

"You have Jonathan's, too?" Nancy asked. "He didn't tell me the last name he picked out."

Tony presented the paper with a flourish and a smile, which Nancy returned. She read the certificate. "Jonathan Marek. Oh, like his mother's maiden name."

Tony nodded. "He thought it would be easier to remember that way."

"So, you have the marriage license, too?" she asked, taking the next piece of paper when he handed it to her. 

"Our friend at the Logan clerk's office came through. Sent it up today. It's good for the next sixty days," he said, pointing to the date at the top of the paper. "But Red doesn't think it's going to take that long to get the judge to come up here. Two weeks, maybe."

Nancy gave Tony a hug. "Thank you, Tony. I really appreciate the help."

"You're welcome," he told her, looking around. "You still unpacking?"

"Not really." Nancy looked around the cabin. "We don't have much. At least, not yet. All the furniture and the dishes and everything Nelson included with the cabin."

"Got enough paper, though," Tony said with a laugh, pointing to the mess on the kitchen table. "What are you writing?"

"It's kind of a history of the phenomenon and this place and everything," she said, setting the new paperwork down on a corner of the table. 

Nodding, Tony looked through a few pages. "I think Kim Gibson has an old typewriter she was thinking about getting rid of. Want me to bring it by for you?" He grinned. "If you type all this up, you might even be able to publish it."

"Yeah, as science fiction," Nancy replied with a laugh. "Trapped out of Time, by Nancy Curtis."

"Nah, you're getting married," Tony reminded her, pointing to the marriage license again. "You're gonna be Nancy Marek by the time this thing gets published."

"N. Marek," Nancy whispered, putting her hand over her mouth. Then she laughed. "Well, shit. I've read my book already. In 1987. It _does_ get published."

"Wait, really?"

Nancy nodded. "I mean, I took out all the weird crap. Everything about the phenomenon. It's a simple history book when it’s published. Didn't include anything warning myself not to go into the woods that day, unfortunately."

Tony frowned, crossing his arms and looking at her. "I wonder why not. Wouldn't it have been better to avoid all of this?" He gestured to the general space around them. "I know I would've rather not get trapped in this stupid little forest town." He sighed. "I miss cable TV."

“I miss McDonalds,” she said, getting a laugh from Tony. “Where’s the nearest one?”

“All the way down to Salem, I think,” Tony said with a sigh. “Maybe we can get someone around here to do a run for us.”

Sticking out her tongue, Nancy shook her head. “It’ll be cold by the time it gets here. No thanks.”

Tony laughed again. “I should get going. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

“Okay,” Nancy said, seeing Tony to the door. “Thanks again.”

“Hey, we’re in this together, right?” He asked sincerely. “Those of us who are trapped. We’ve gotta take care of each other.”

“Still,” she insisted. “I appreciate it.”

Tony nodded. “You’re welcome.”

Nancy watched him walk down the road away from their cabin for a moment before she closed the door and returned to her work. If this pile of garbage was going to be a published book someday, she was going to have to start editing _now_.

~*~

_ June 23rd, 1987 _

“Look, the thing is,” Carter Jenson said, unlocking the cabin door, “I can’t have anyone in the cabin one Sunday every nine weeks, so it’s gotta be a short term rental.”

“Yeah, I know about the disappearances,” Steve told him. “We’re actually kind of _studying_ them. So, no worries. If we haven’t figured it out by that Sunday in August, we’ll be back in town that whole day.”

Carter nodded and showed Steve into the cabin. It was pretty big for a cabin, with a large main room centered around a big fireplace. It probably would be really nice during the winter, except the people Steve wanted most to cuddle were gone. 

There was a kitchen and three bedrooms, one with a big double bed and the others with two singles. There were enough beds for six. Steve guessed he’d be sleeping on the couch. 

“Yeah, this’ll do. How much do I owe you?”

“125 for the first week,” Carter told him. 

Steve wanted to haggle and talk him down like Nancy and Jonathan would have, but he was too tired and too hungover still to even try. He counted out the cash from his wallet and gave it to Carter. 

“Great, thank you,” Carter said, handing Steve the keys. 

~*~

_ July 7, 1964 _

“Here’s the guy I was telling you about, Joe,” Jasper Roundtree said, walking up to the base of the ladder Jonathan was perched on. “Jonathan! Why don’t you climb on down?”

Not really sure what was going on, Jonathan abandoned Jasper’s gutters and climbed down. He took off his work gloves and took the newcomer’s hand, shaking it. 

Jasper said, “Jonathan, this is Joe Coombs. He runs the auto repair shop down in Logan.”

Jonathan tried not to betray how quickly his heart started beating at the mention of that name. He had met Joe Coombs back in 1987, and now that he knew who it was, Jonathan recognized him. 

“Joe, this is Jonathan. He did a great job fixing up my truck when it tried to die on me.”

“You know a lot about cars?” Joe asked, and Jonathan suddenly understood. This was a job interview, wasn’t it?

“Some,” he said. “I mostly just learned from my dad. He was a mechanic. Liked to fix up old muscle cars. Kind of a learn-by-doing situation.”

“There are worse places to start out,” he said with a shrug. “Roundtree here tells me you’re getting married in a few days. That you could use a steady paycheck.”

“I could,” Jonathan agreed. “I am.”

“I’ve got a storage garage up here, inside the line or whatever you want to call it,” Joe said. “I could bring up some tools, tow up the cars that are giving me the most grief. Have you work on them here. Teach you what you don’t already know. Pay you for your time.”

“I–” Jonathan said, looking to Jasper and then back to Joe. “Sure. That sounds great. But, why–"

"Why would I do this for you?" Joe asked him, and Jonathan nodded. With a smile, Joe said, "My mother was from Cedarville. She passed away last year. Never did make it past the boundary."

Jonathan let himself feel a little bit of Joe's sadness, and the depth of it made him glad he'd only taken on a bit. "Okay," Jonathan said, giving Joe an understanding smile. "Thank you."

~*~

_ July 18, 1964 _

Nancy held the flowers Alexis gave her, she stood in the meeting hall in the center of town, and she smiled at Jonathan. She wore a cream colored dress with blue flowers printed on the fabric. It wasn’t exactly a wedding dress, but it fit well enough the day she needed it. When the justice asked her if she would take Jonathan as her lawfully-wedded husband, she nodded and said, "I will."

When the justice asked Jonathan the same question, he took her hand and traced his thumb against the scar on her palm and said, "I will."

Nancy teared up, full of emotion. On the one hand, she loved Jonathan so fiercely that it _hurt_. But on the other, this wasn't supposed to be how this happened. Steve wasn't here. Neither were their families. Nancy wasn't supposed to be pregnant and married at nineteen. She was supposed to be a college kid for at least a few more years. She was supposed to travel as much of the world as would have her. 

She was supposed to _avoid_ getting trapped in a nuclear family like her mother. So much for that dream.

Alexis handed Nancy a tissue and she dried her eyes.

She tried to be happy as the ceremony ended and Jonathan kissed her. He held her close and whispered, "I know, Nancy. Me too."

The rest of the day was bittersweet. Most of the other Trapped came to the ceremony, along with a few other people from town. Ellen Snyder and Dottie Savage provided a picnic lunch for everyone and Tony brought his stereo and played records, many of which Nancy recognized from her mother's collection. Jonathan indulged her for a slow dance, and Tony and Red both danced with her to the faster songs.

Near the end of the night, when Alexis and Red started a bonfire in the street outside the town hall, Nancy sat next to it, wrapped around Jonathan's arm. "I _do_ love you," she insisted to him. "I love you so much. I'm trying to be happy."

"I know, sweetheart," he said, putting his hand on her face and kissing her. "I love you, too."

Nancy didn't say out loud how much she missed Steve. She didn't have to. She knew Jonathan could tell.

~*~

_ June 24, 1987 _

Steve spent the time between when Hop called the house first thing in the morning and when he was going to meet them at Ed's packing up all his, Jonathan's, and Nancy's things. Packing his stuff was fine, but just touching anything else made him feel like he was going to freak out and lose it.

What had happened to them? 

Where had they gone?

Why did he have a picture of them from god-knows-when sitting on the nightstand? Who had taken it? And _when_?

Eventually he managed to get everything in the car. Sullenly, he made his way over to the main house and found Mary Ann at the front desk. "Hey," he said, handing her his keys. "Thanks for everything."

"Oh, come here." Mary Ann stepped out from behind the desk and pulled Steve into a tight hug. "You'll let me know if you need anything, won't you?"

"I will," Steve agreed, letting Mary Ann give him one last squeeze.

Then he left. There were still at least three hours to kill before the others got to town, so Steve drove up to the cabin. He stashed the bags in the house, and then stood on the front stoop, looking out at the woods.

"Where are you guys?" Steve said out loud, wishing he could just think really hard and make things happen then way El could.

There was nothing. No sign of them, except the picture in his back pocket. With a sigh, Steve decided he didn't want to be alone anymore. He got in the car and drove back to town.

~*~

_ August 5, 1964 _

Jonathan was washing the grease off his hands when Nancy got home. "Hey," he said to her. "How did it go today?"

"The doctor says everything seems good," she told him, stepping close behind Jonathan and wrapping her arms around him. "I met with the publisher this afternoon."

"Oh?" Jonathan asked. "You finally convinced him to drive up here?"

Nancy nodded against his back. Jonathan finished washing up and turned in Nancy's arms. He cupped her face in his now-clean hands and kissed her. He tried to figure out if the sadness she felt was new, or if it was the same sadness she'd felt for the past three months.

"What did the publisher say?"

"They've got a grant from the state historical society to fund the publication of books like mine," she said flatly. "They're going to publish it."

"What?" Jonathan asked, squeezing her in a tight hug. "That's great!'

"We already knew it was going to be published," she insisted.

"Yes," Jonathan agreed. "But we didn't know when or how. We should celebrate."

"How? Neither one of us can drink." She scoffed and let go of him. "What's the point?"

Catching up with Nancy on her way toward the bathroom, Jonathan caught her hand gently with his. "The point is trying to make the best of things," Jonathan insisted. "El and Will are almost to Cedarville. I've been able to catch glimpses of them in the bath every night this week."

"It might be almost time to leave?" Nancy asked, a little bit of hope bubbling up inside her.

Jonathan nodded and pulled her into another hug. "So, how do you want to celebrate?"

"I want…" Nancy said, looking up as she thought. "A chocolate cake. Alexis has a box mix at her store."

"Okay, sweetheart," Jonathan said with a smile. "Anything else the baby's craving? What should I make for dinner?"

"Nothing chicken," Nancy insisted with a disgusted grimace. So far, she hadn't been too sick, but there were definitely certain foods Jonathan wasn't allowed to bring into the house anymore. Chicken being one of them.

Jonathan kissed her and said, "I'll figure it out. Why don't you go lay down and rest?"

Nancy nodded. She stopped by the bathroom, then pulled a book out of her bag and laid down on the bed. Jonathan turned on the fan for her and set a glass of water on the nightstand.

After Jonathan had fetched the food and cooked it, providing Nancy with a thick slice of chocolate cake that reminded him of Jenny's birthday party, he put Nancy back to bed.

Then he got in the bath.

He found El right away – just a flash of her – but she was even closer than the day before. And then Jonathan found Steve, which hadn't happened before. He couldn't get Steve to hear him, but Jonathan could tell he was closer than before. He was standing with a door at his back, staring out into space.

And, God, he felt _so_ lonely. Jonathan wasn't sure how he'd ever make up for causing Steve to feel this way. Doing his best to work with his siblings and figure a way out of this would have to do. 

~*~

_ June 24, 1987 _

Sitting at the bar at Ed's, Steve picked at the french fries Charlie had pushed on him. "I'd rather have a drink," he told her, eyeing up the bottles behind her.

With a little snort, Charlie said, "Unless your driver's license says something different than the last time you showed it to me, you're out of luck. I'm not even supposed to let you sit here at the bar."

"Oh, Jesus. You're such a rebel," he said dryly, making her snort.

A minute later, the door opened and Charlie stopped back at Steve long enough to nod toward it. "Is that them?"

Steve turned, and though he saw Hopper first, it was El who ran to him and put her arms around him. "Hey," he said, hugging her back and then welcoming Will with one arm.

Hopper came and gave him a hug after El let go, and Steve even got one from Mike. "Are you guys hungry?" Steve asked. "The burgers here are pretty good."

"We should eat before we do anything else," Hopper insisted, staring down El when she tried to argue. After a moment, she relented with a nod.

Steve took his plate and his soda, setting them down on a table in Charlie's section and gesturing for the others to join him. "So, I got us all a place to stay," he told the others. "What have you been able to find out?"

"We've talked to him a couple times," Will said, keeping his voice low. "He says he's with Nancy."

"In that Cedarville place," Mike added.

"Jonathan tried to tell us something else, too," El insisted.

"Yeah, well I went up there yesterday," Steve told the others. "And I didn't find them, but I did find this." He pulled the old photo out of his pocket and set it on the table between Will and El.

"Is that…?" Mike asked, leaning into El's space to get a better look at it. "That's Nancy."

"And that's Jonathan," Will insisted, pointing to the picture. "Jesus, how old is this?" Then Will's eyes went wide and he looked at El.

She looked right back at him, her eyes widening, too.

" _Out loud_ , please, kids," Hopper said, but before they could explain, Charlie came to the table.

"Anyone know what they want?"

"Oh, shit. No," Mike said, taking the menu from the side of the table and opening it.

Steve intended on asking Charlie to come back in a few minutes, but El stood up and faced Charlie.

"Who _are_ you?" El demanded, glaring at her.

Charlie glared right back, and Steve could see everything about to go to shit. He jumped to his feet and said, "Jesus, El. This is my friend, Charlie. She's been helping us."

"Helping?" El asked.

Steve nodded, which got El to warily back down.

"Is your family always this weird?" Charlie asked him quietly.

"Yeah," he told her, patting her shoulder. "It's not just you." Things still felt tense at the table, so Steve said, "Why don't you give us a few minutes, huh?"

Charlie nodded and left, going into the back and ignoring the guy at the bar when he tried to get her attention.

Sitting back down, Steve asked El, "Do you want to tell me what that was all about?"

El pressed her lips together, but Will said in a low voice, "She's like us. Me and El."

"Yeah, I kind of figured," Steve told them. "But I'm pretty sure she doesn't know."

"What makes you say that?" Hop asked him, and Steve shrugged. 

He told the others, "She had the same reaction to this place," he said, pointing to the picture of Jonathan and Nancy, "as Jonathan did. Told me it was her imagination acting up. I mean, it's not like I could read her mind, or anything. It's just a guess."

"Go back to the picture," Hop said, putting his finger on it. "What were you going to say about it?"

Will was the one who spoke. "We think Jonathan was trying to tell us that he's stuck in the past. It didn't make sense until we saw the picture."

"Stuck," Steve said, looking at both of them. "In the _past_? How far in the past?"

"I don't know," Will said, looking over at El, who shook her head.

Mike picked up the picture and looked at it for a moment. Then he asked Steve, "You said you know where this place is?"

Steve nodded. "It's actually not too far from the cabin where we're staying. Half a mile or so."

El started to stand up, but Hopper pointed at her and said, "We _eat_ first, then we can go look."

She pouted, but sat down.

"Everyone decide what they want," Steve told them. "I'll take the orders to Charlie myself."

~*~

_ August 17, 1964 _

Nancy sighed, too hot to sleep, even with the fan going. She felt restless, unable to calm down and go to sleep.

What she really wanted to do was go for a walk outside now that the temperature had dropped. Still, the nights out here were incredibly dark, and there was a mountain lion prowling the area recently. It wasn't safe.

One more reason she was stuck here. Trapped.

Maybe she could work off the excess energy another way. She looked over at Jonathan sleeping beside her. He'd only been asleep for two hours, and he'd had a long day at the shop. He said he'd rebuilt Red MacIver's jeep after he hit a possum near the river and ended up side-swiping a tree.

If Nancy woke him up now, he'd get grumpy and resent it. And yet how many times over the years had Jonathan woken her up, begging her to help him feel better? If Steve was here, Nancy would wake him up instead, no question.

But he wasn't.

Nancy looked at the simple golden band on her left hand, twirling it around her finger with her thumb. As far as anyone here in 1964 was concerned, Nancy and Jonathan were it for each other. They were married to each other, not to Steve.

She and Jonathan both knew it wasn't true. Their marriage was incomplete without Steve in it, just like their marriage bed wasn't full without him. If he was there, he'd be wearing Jonathan like a living blanket, holding Nancy close, and snoring softly.

Leaning over, Nancy put a kiss on Jonathan's shoulder. "Sweetheart? Wake up."

Jonathan stirred, taking a sharp breath. "Mmm?"

"I need help falling asleep," she told him, wanting to put her hands on him, but also not wanting to provoke a bad reaction. "Please?"

"God, Nance. I'm so tired," he said, turning away from her and sighing. "Can't Steve do it?" Before Nancy could remind him that they were _alone_ , without Steve, Jonathan took a sharp breath. "Oh, fuck."

"Just remembered?" Nancy asked him.

Jonathan turned over and rolled closer to Nancy. He nodded. "Yeah. Sorry. I was dreaming we were back in Chicago."

"I miss Chicago," Nancy said. "I even miss Nero's."

"Mm," Jonathan agreed, sitting up next to Nancy. He brushed her hair back and kissed her shoulder. "I miss watching him work."

"I miss watching him...do _other_ things," Nancy admitted, taking Jonathan's hand and tracing her fingers over his palm. "He always just _gave_ everything he had to us. So freely."

She heard Jonathan swallow. "Yeah. Everything. Every time. Like he loved us so much he couldn't help it."

When Nancy nodded, a few tears escaped her eyes. Jonathan cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.

Then he pulled back suddenly, saying, "Oh, shit. They're here!"

"Who's here?" Nancy asked, watching as Jonathan turned on the bedside lamp and pulled a shirt on over his head.


	15. Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve finally gets a chance to speak with Jonathan and Nancy.

_ June 24, 1987 _

After showing the family the cabin he'd rented, Steve asked, "Do you guys want to go out there?" He showed them the picture of Nancy and Jonathan. "I mean, we know they were there at one point, at least."

"Yes, let's," said El, and Steve drove everyone through the ghost town and over to the abandoned cabin. 

"This is it."

El took Will's hand and they both closed their eyes. Without looking, and somehow without tripping, they walked into the cabin. Steve, Mike, and Hop followed.

Inside the cabin it was pretty dark, the late afternoon sun no longer falling through the hole in the roof. Steve looked to the others, wondering what was going on, but Mike just gave him a wide-eyed shrug.

And then the air in front of the Wonder Twins shimmered and a soft light came through it.

"What the–" Steve started to say, but he stopped short when a shadow appeared in the space. "Jonathan?"

"Steve!" Jonathan cried, and his voice sounded strange, like it was coming through a broken radio.

Another shadow joined Jonathan. "Steve!"

"Oh, god! Nancy!" Steve cried, taking big steps toward the window, or whatever it was, until Will stopped him. As his eyes adjusted, he could see that Jonathan and Nancy were both wearing pajamas, like they’d been sleeping. 

One hand still in El's, Will reached through the window. "Nancy! Give me your hand!"

Steve watched as Nancy grabbed onto Will with a triumphant cry. 

Will pulled back on her. "Come on!"

Nancy took one step forward – and ran into something. An invisible wall, right in the plane of the portal or whatever it was, stopped Nancy from coming through. 

"Pull harder!" Steve cried, getting his arms around Will and stabilizing him. "Please!"

El cried out, breathing heavily beside them and the edges of the portal began to waver. Nancy let go of Will's hand and pounded on the portal desperately, her eyes wet as they met Steve's.

And then Jonathan reached through. He reached through and took Steve's hand and he was _real_ , but there was this awful, terribly sad look on his face.

"I can't leave her," Jonathan said. "So much more time passes on this side."

"Then let me come to you," Steve begged, running his other hand up Jonathan's. His fingers passed through the portal, the energy of it zapping against his skin.

"No!" El cried, and in the same instant, Jonathan pushed Steve away and snatched his hand back just before the portal snapped shut.

"Oh, god!" Steve fell onto his knees. "They were there!"

Looking back, Steve saw El limp in Mike's arms, and Will was laying sideways on the floor, panting.

_ Shit! _

"Is she okay?" Steve asked Mike.

"She's still breathing," Mike told him, watching as Hop sat down beside them and took El's hand in his. 

Will turned onto his back, still panting as he said, "It was too difficult. We couldn't keep it open any longer."

"Why couldn't Nancy come through?" Steve asked him. "You and me and Jonathan could all reach past it, but Nancy couldn't!"

"I don't know," Will said, closing his eyes. "I don't know."

~*~

_ August 17, 1964 _

Jonathan just barely got his arm back through the portal before it collapsed. When he looked over, Nancy was on the ground, sobbing. Jonathan sat down next to her, pulling Nancy into his arms.

"Why?" she asked, her voice croaking. "Why can't I leave this _fucking_ place?"

"I don't know," Jonathan said, wiping the blood from under his nose. "But I'm not leaving you alone here. Not again. Either we both go, or neither of us goes."

"Steve," Nancy said, picking up Jonathan's hand and rubbing her fingers across it. "He reached through. He was there!"

"He's trying to get us back," Jonathan assured her. "Him and the others. They're _trying_."

Nancy sobbed again and hit the floor beneath her with one fist. "Fuck!"

~*~

_ June 24, 1987 _

Steve worked wordlessly in the kitchen, realizing that half of what he knew how to do, he only knew if Jonathan was cooking with him. Still, El and Will needed food. They needed fuel to recover. Steve couldn't do what they did. All he could do was help.

"Okay, Joyce," Hop said into the kitchen phone. "I'll be there. See you then."

"Mom and Jenny still coming in tomorrow?" Steve asked after Hopper hung up the phone.

"Yeah," he said with a deep sigh. "I was kind of hoping I'd have her kid back by the time she got here."

"Maybe we could have," Steve said, stirring the pot of noodles, "but he chose to stay behind. He wouldn't leave Nancy."

"Would you, if you were in his place?" Hop asked, leaning against the kitchen counter.

"No," Steve admitted. He tried to stir the pot again, but the spoon fell out of his hand and clattered to the floor. Steve gave a frustrated cry and kicked it, before he was suddenly wrapped up in Hopper's arms.

"They were so close!" Steve cried, trying to push Hop away, but not having much luck of it. "So close! I don't understand it!"

"None of us do, kid," Hop insisted, hugging Steve so tightly it was almost hard to breathe. Still, the tight embrace settled the nasty gnawing feeling in his gut.

"It's not fair," Steve insisted, starting to relax a little bit. "It's not."

"No, it's not," Hop agreed, finally letting Steve go. "But we do what we always do, alright? We work the problem. We _solve_ it."

"We need more information before we can solve it," Mike insisted from the doorway. "And I think," he looked behind him as Will and El followed him into the room. "We need more power."

Nodding, El let Will and Mike help her to one of the kitchen chairs. "When Jonathan followed Nancy back into the past, he drew on us, nearly wiped us completely out," she explained, getting a nod of confirmation from Will.

Sitting next to El, Will said, "We were hoping that being here, being closer would help give us enough power to get them back, but I don't think it has."

"There's only two of us on this side," El said. "Not three, like before."

"How do we get you guys more power?" Steve asked.

"I have two ideas for that," Mike said. "Either we get someone like Kali to join us here, or we use the devices I brought to figure out what type of energy we need. And then we supply it. Artificially."

"You're talking about building a goddamn time machine, aren't you, Mike?" Hopper asked him.

"Yeah," said Mike with a little grin. "Yeah, I am."

~*~

_ August 18, 1964 _

Jonathan found Nancy outside the cabin when he got home from work. She was swinging the axe, chopping wood and glaring at it angrily.

"Nancy," he said, approaching her carefully, as she _was_ armed. "It's eighty degrees out. How long have you been doing this?"

"Not long," she said, glaring at him as she picked up her canteen from the ground and took several deep swallows. "Happy?"

"No," he told her. "I wish I knew what went wrong last night, but I just _don't_."

Jonathan watched as Nancy set another piece of wood on the chopping block. This time when she swung the axe, she screamed at the top of her lungs. It was a ferocious, frustrated, primal scream that made the hair on the back of Jonathan's neck stand up. The axe hit the wood. The wood split cleanly in two.

Nancy dropped the axe and said, "I'm writing them a book." She passed Jonathan on her way back into the cabin, not meeting his eyes.

Jonathan picked up the axe, stowing it on its hook so it wouldn't get wet and rust, and followed her inside. "How can I help?" he asked, watching as she took her folders and folders of notes out from under the bed.

"Make dinner," Nancy said, still not looking at him.

"Okay," he agreed, wanting to touch her, to calm her down somehow, but knowing she wouldn't appreciate it while she was this angry. "I'm here, Nancy," he said instead, and when she looked over at him a few minutes later, she didn't exactly smile at him. But she didn't frown either.

~*~

_ June 25, 1987 _

Steve knew he should have gone along with Hopper to pick up Joyce and Jenny from the airport, but he couldn't stand leaving town. He could barely stand driving back down to the little grocery in Logan to pick up more food for the twins.

Jonathan and Nancy were there. Or, they _had been_ there at one point, anyway. He didn't understand the warps in space-time as Will called them when he tried to explain what he thought was happening.

Steve _did_ know how to carry Mike's equipment from the Byers' station wagon into the old cabin in the woods. He knew how to follow Mike and Will's directions about how to assemble the pieces back together. He did understand how to place the "detectors" where El told him they would do the most good.

And then it was time for the experiment.

Will and El sat down on the floor, blinding themselves and clasping hands. Mike had his eyes on the equipment. Steve had a notebook and a pen, with several simple questions that needed answers. He also had an envelope to send through.

"Get ready," El told them, and Steve took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. 

The portal or window or whatever it was shimmered to life in the exact same spot as before. Jonathan was on the other side, Nancy just at his shoulder.

"We have to make this quick," he told them, pushing the envelope through and into Jonathan's hands. Nancy brushed his hand with hers as Jonathan took the envelope, and then she put a notebook into Steve's hands.

As Steve brought the notebook back to his side, Will groaned with pain behind him. But then he noticed Nancy's shape. "Are you…?" he tried to ask her.

"Yes," she said, putting a hand on her stomach.

Behind him, Mike yelled, "Steve! The questions!"

"Shit, right," he said, tearing his gaze away from Nancy's belly. "What day is it for you guys?"

"September 20th, 1964," Jonathan told him. Steve wrote down the date.

"How long have you been there?"

"Nancy six months, me five," Jonathan said.

"If we sent some equipment through, could you use it?"

"Given enough direction, yeah," Nancy said with a nod.

Jonathan pushed his hair away from his face, and that's when Steve noticed the ring he was wearing.

"Did you guys–" he started to ask, but the portal vanished suddenly, dissolving into thin air.

"I got some data," Mike said, taking Nancy's notebook from Steve's hand. "Oh, my god. She's a genius," Mike said as he flipped through it.

Her breath short and shaky, El asked, "What's in it?"

"All sorts of information," Mike said. "Disappearance dates. Appearance dates on that side. A rough calculation of the time elapse conversion factor between there and here. _Everything_."

Steve tried to make sense of all that, but he was kind of still stuck on the fact that Nancy was _pregnant_ and Jonathan, at least, had been wearing a ring.

"Is there anything other than facts in there?" Steve asked Mike. "Anything about how they're doing? Letters or something, like we sent them?"

Mike shook his head, but as he flipped through the pages, a folded piece of paper fell out! Will picked it up. "This says your name," he told Steve as he handed it to him.

Impatiently, Steve took the paper, noting his name in Jonathan's handwriting. He unfolded the letter and read it.

_ Dear Steve, _

_ I miss you so much I feel sick with it all the time. These last five months have felt like  _ years  _without you. We should be with you, not stuck here on our own. We're having trouble learning how to be together without you. It's hard. It's so hard._

_ In case you didn't notice, though I'm pretty sure you would have, Nancy's pregnant. It was an accident. A mistake. We didn't want to do this without you, and we still don't. Nancy and I are doing everything we can think of to get back to you before the baby is born. You did say you wouldn't mind a baby who looked like me. _

Steve paused, laughing a little and brushing away some tears.

_ Just in case we don't get back to you on time, we got married. We're going by the names Jonathan and Nancy Marek, if that helps you find out what happened to us. We got married in the Cedarville town hall by a county justice of the peace. _

_ It felt wrong without you there. _

_ But Nancy made me promise to take care of the baby, no matter what, so now I have a piece of paper that lets me do just that. I want nothing more than for our little family to include you, Steve. _

_ I love you, forever and always. _

_ Jonathan _

"Jesus Christ," Steve swore as he finished reading the letter. His legs wobbled and he had to sit down before they went out from under him.

"What is it?" El asked, reaching for the letter, but Steve clutched it close to his chest.

"It's private, sorry," he told her, needing Jonathan's words to belong to him and no one else. "But Nancy's pregnant. They got married."

"Wow," Will said, sharing a look with El, then with Mike.

Mike took a strip of paper off each of the detectors. "Do you think it'll be safe if we leave these here, set up for tomorrow?"

Looking at the multiple holes in the roof and the leaves all over the floor, Steve said, "I'm guessing not. At least not without a good tarp."

"Then let's get everything packed up. We have a lot of data to look over before tomorrow."

~*~

_ September 20, 1964 _

“He noticed,” Nancy told Jonathan. “Just like you thought he would.”

“He did.” Jonathan opened the envelope and took out a stack of folded paper. He paged through the first few, then separated those from the rest of the stack and handed them to Nancy. “They sent us letters, too.”

Nancy took the stack, noting her name at the top in Mike’s chicken-scratch writing.

_ Nancy, _

_ How are you? I mean, are you doing okay? I would guess not. Sorry. _

_ We brought the power detectors I told you about, and we’re going to use them, hopefully to figure out some way to boost power and get you back home.  _

_ It’s been weird enough having you away at college this year. I can’t stand the thought of you being gone for good. Hang in there. _

_ Mike _

Nancy hadn't thought she'd miss her brother, or the rest of her family, as much as she suddenly did. She supposed she'd been so focused on missing Steve, she hadn't given too much thought to being cut off from everyone else in her life, too.

Would Nancy ever see any of them again? Would her parents ever get to meet their grandchild?

The next letter was from El. 

_ Nancy, _

_ A few months ago, I taught Jenny how to paint her nails. She painted my toenails bright red and it reminded me of you. Will and I will do everything we can think of to get you and Jonathan back. You said that you would be there for me, whenever I needed a sister. I'm telling you now that I am your sister. I will get you back, just like I will get Jonathan back. Whatever it takes. _

_ El _

Nancy laughed a little, but her tears got in the way. Still, El's determination and loyalty _did_ help her feel a little bit like it wasn't as hopeless as Nancy feared it would be. El was a miracle worker, and had been ever since Nancy knew her. To have El in her corner, pledging to do whatever it took to get Nancy back where she belonged? It was as good as Nancy could have hoped for.

And then there was the last letter.

_ Nancy, _

_ I realized I've been looking to you for an example of how to hold together when weird shit like this happens. If you're not freaking out, it's a lot easier for me not to freak out either. Except this time, you're not here, and I am freaking out. _

_ Shit. Let me make that more clear. My freaking out is not on you. It's not your fault. It's on me, for never being able to imagine you not being just a phone call away. I've been relying on you, because I thought I could, and now I don't know how to be an adult without you here to lead by example. _

_ That's something I should probably figure out, isn't it?  _

_ Still don't know how to sleep alone. _

_ I miss you so fucking much. I love you, babe. _

_ Take care of Jonathan, okay? He needs you like I do. _

–  _Steve_

Nancy took a deep, shaky breath and turned to the last page Jonathan had given her. This one was a series of questions written in Steve's handwriting. He'd already gotten answers to the first few, and most of them were covered in the notebook she'd given them.

Just to have something to do, Nancy went to the kitchen table and got a pen. She circled the questions that still needed answers. Then she got a new piece of paper and started answering them.

"They're not going to be able to open it again for a couple weeks," Jonathan said, running his hand up and down Nancy's back. "You don't have to do that now."

"I'd rather get it out of the way now," Nancy said, but she looked up at Jonathan, noticing his eyes were red-rimmed. He wiped his nose. Thinking of Steve's request to take care of Jonathan, Nancy waved him closer. "Come here." 

Jonathan leaned down and put his head on Nancy's shoulder and let her hug him for a long moment. "We're going to get through this," she told him, catching him with her hands on his cheeks and kissing him before he could escape.

"Yeah, I know," Jonathan said, his voice soft. He kissed her again. "I've got to get back to work."

"Okay."

~*~

_ June 25, 1987 _

"I just don't know if we can replicate this sort of harmonic structure," Will said, interrupting Steve's nap. Not that he'd really been sleeping. He couldn't _really_ sleep. Not yet. He'd just been resting his eyes.

"Yeah, these variations as you brought Nancy's notebook over seem more complex than a simple change in the frequency of the EM field generated by the portal," Mike replied to him.

It all sounded like gibberish to Steve. 

"We might have to do another experiment tomorrow." Will sighed.

El asked, "Don't Nancy and Jonathan have to spend weeks over there for every day we spend here?"

Mike said, "That's what Nancy's notes seem to suggest. I know it sucks, but I just don't see how we can possibly analyze enough data _and_ build a device to help stabilize the portal in the next few days."

"Can Nancy figure it out?" Steve asked them, opening his eyes when no one responded right away. "Like El said, she's got way more time on that end. She wrote you that whole book of notes. Can she do the math or whatever?"

Mike and Will looked at each other and eventually, Will said, "I don't know. Maybe."

"She does have time on her side." Mike made a squashed sort of face. "She's smart. If we send her the right books, she might be able to do a crash course in engineering."

"And superstring theory?" Will asked him. "It wasn't even invented until the 1970s."

El spoke up again. "She won't need to know the theory behind it to be able to replicate it. Just the engineering. Max doesn't like the theory, but she's really good at building stuff when you tell her what it needs to do."

"Yes!" Mike said, lighting up. "She should be able to get an EM generator and some sort of power modulation regulator. And an appropriate power source." He showed something to Will. "How many joules is this? We're talking generator, not nuclear power plant, right?"

"I think so," Will said with a nod. He tore a piece of paper out of an empty notebook and said. "Alright? What calculations do we need Nancy to do? And what are the specs of what we need her to build?"

Steve got up and went to the kitchen, looking for something to do that didn't tax his brain as much as listening to those kids. He had made three unfruitful circuits around the kitchen when he heard the Byers family station wagon pull up to the cabin. 

"Hey, they're here," Steve called to the others. He shoved his feet into his sneakers and went outside, catching Jenny when she launched herself into his arms. "Hey, squirt!"

"Steve! I rode in an airplane!"

"Yeah, I know," Steve said, giving Joyce a one-armed hug and asking, "How was the flight?"

"Long," Joyce replied with a tired sigh. "Would you mind taking her for a run or something? She's been cooped up all day."

"Sure," Steve said, putting Jenny down on the ground. "C'mon. Let's go this way."

Steve ran Jenny all the way up to the center of Cedarville and back, bringing her back to the cabin only once she started dragging her feet. "It's nice here," she said, just as they got to the cabin door. "Weird, but nice."

"What do you mean, _weird_?" Steve asked her, looking around. 

Jenny shrugged. "I don't know. Just… like something's gonna happen."

"Great, now she tells the future," Steve said with a playful tug on Jenny's hair. "Gonna be a fortune teller when you grow up?"

Jenny went through the door into the cabin and got distracted by saying hello to the others. She didn't answer Steve's question.


	16. Intersection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy and Jonathan develop a device that might help get them home.

_ October 6, 1964 _

Jonathan woke in the early hours of the morning to El's voice calling him. He staggered out of bed, made sure he was decent and braced himself to help stabilize a portal. There was bright daylight on the other side, and his mother was there. "Mom!"

"Jonathan!" she said, reaching through and squeezing his hands. Mike and Steve worked in concert to push a stack of books through the portal. They thumped loudly on the ground, and Jonathan felt Nancy wake up behind him. 

Then Mike and Steve held up a device, Steve saying, "We need you to catch this one, so it doesn't break."

"Okay." Jonathan let go of his mother's hands and took the device from Steve. It was heavier than it looked, but he managed to pull it across. While he set it on the ground, Nancy ran forward. 

She caught Steve's arm and pulled him back through the barrier, kissing him. The extra effort of keeping the portal open with Steve halfway through it made Jonathan stagger in pain and fall to one knee. "Go, baby! I can't…"

Steve pulled back with a regretful smile and the portal closed, plunging the cabin back into darkness. Nancy got the lamp switched on and an extra log on the fire while Jonathan caught his breath. "They sent a bunch of stuff this time," he said, taking stock of everything.

Nancy crouched down, putting the books back into a neat stack. "This one says, 'Start Here'," she said, showing Jonathan a large envelope.

"What does it say?" he asked her, wiping the blood from under his nose and standing, helping Nancy to her feet as well. 

Nancy set the stack of books on the table and opened the envelope. “It’s…” she said, skimming the first page quickly as she sat down. “It’s a plan. They need us to use the time we have on this end to engineer something.”

“But, we’re not engineers,” Jonathan pointed out, sitting down with her.

Nancy held up a book that said, “An Introduction to Electrical Engineering.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jonathan sighed, putting his face into his hands. "We're going to be stuck here forever!"

"Hey, no we aren't," Nancy insisted. "If Mike can learn this shit, so can I." 

Well, Jonathan admired her confidence, anyway. In fact, her usual confidence had waned somewhat over the past few months of being stuck. Getting any of it back was a positive sign. "I suppose knowing some mechanics could help," he offered Nancy.

She smiled and put her hand over his. After reading the letter for a minute, Nancy said, "They want a volunteer, besides the two of us, to try going from our side to theirs. They think now that Joyce and Jenny are there, they might have enough power to pull it off."

"We should call a meeting," Jonathan said. "See if anyone wants to try."

"I'll call Red in the morning," she said, opening the engineering book. She winced and took her hand from Jonathan's, setting it on her belly.

"Everything okay?"

"Hmm?" Nancy asked, looking up from the book. Jonathan gestured to her hand, and she replied, "Oh, it's fine. Just kicking."

"Can I feel?"

Nancy smiled and took his hand, placing it on her stomach. "I don't know if it's going to kick again."

Jonathan waited a moment with his hand on Nancy's stomach while she went back to reading the book. A minute later, she asked, "Did you feel that?"

He shook his head. "Maybe once she gets bigger."

"She?" Nancy asked with a surprised laugh. "Know something I don't?"

Jonathan shrugged. "It's just a feeling I've been getting lately. Probably isn't right."

"I'll bet you it is," Nancy said, wrinkling up her nose and leaning over to give Jonathan a kiss. "Now, let's figure this out."

Jonathan left Nancy to her book (which he noticed was stamped with 'Salem Public Library'), and pulled the stack of papers toward himself, starting to look through them. It was too late to think about going back to bed, so he figured they might as well make the best use of their time.

~*~

_ June 27, 1987 _

"Is everything set?" Joyce asked, a coffee mug clutched in her hands. Steve himself was barely conscious either. It was _technically_ after dawn, but dawn came damn early during this time of the year. The only reason they were starting this early was to try to maximize the chances of contacting Jonathan at least twice that day. The more time Will and El spent resting between attempts, the more successful those attempts would be, but the longer Jonathan and Nancy would have to spend in 1964.

"Devices are both up," Mike said.

Steve gently shook the bundle in his arms. "Jenny? Ready to help out, honey?"

She blearily opened her eyes, nodding and putting her hand in El's. 

Steve asked El, "You guys aren't draining her too much, are you? She's just a little kid."

"Using her strength is our last resort," El insisted. "She's just not used to waking up this early."

"Are any of us?"

Will snorted a little bit and took a sip of his own coffee, before passing it to El, who also took a sip. Steve wondered if sharing drinks had anything to do with the fact that the two of them had been functioning more like one whole person all week, rather than individuals. The worst was when they both answered a question directed at just one of them. El passed the coffee to Mike, who finished it off. 

Steve tried not to read too much into one shared cup of coffee, despite what it reminded him of.

"We're ready," El told the others, watching as Joyce moved closer and took Will's hand. "Here we go."

The portal opened, and Jonathan handed Mike a large envelope, saying, "We have a volunteer."

Mike nodded. "Okay. Let's try it. Is your device recording?"

"Recording," Nancy said in agreement. She waved someone over, and it was an older gentleman, probably in his late 70s. 

El groaned and the portal opened wider, becoming shaped more like a door than a window. Mike and Joyce reached forward, taking the man's hands. They started pulling him over, but Will, El, and Jonathan all cried out. The portal wobbled, its edges getting fuzzier, and then Jonathan was pulling the man back to the 1964 side. A sigh of relief went through the room, and El said to Jonathan, "We still need more power."

"Read the plans," Nancy told her, pointing at the envelope. "I think I've–"

The portal collapsed before Nancy could finish her sentence.

"That's too hard," Jenny whined, burrowing closer to Steve. "I'm tired."

"I'll take her back," Steve told the others. "Let her have some more sleep and get started on breakfast."

"Thank you, Steve," Joyce said, sounding more than a little drained herself. She leaned against Hopper and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her up as Mike and Will gathered the paper strips of data from their measurement devices and started breaking everything down.

Later on, while everyone was still resting, Steve told Hop, “I’ll be back in a bit.”

He took the Chevy into town, and stopped in at Ed’s. Charlie wasn’t there, so he crossed the street and rang the doorbell at Mary Ann’s house. 

He had to ring the doorbell twice before Charlie opened the door, glaring daggers at him. “It’s Saturday morning, and I work nights.”

“I think we’re going to need your help,” he said. When she started closing the door again, he added, “I don’t think you’re crazy, and I know exactly the person to prove it to you.”

She whined, “Fuck off," and it sounded more like a complaint than a curse.

“Wait!” Steve cried, barely resisting the urge to shove his foot in the door. “There’s only a few people like you, Charlie, and we can’t get Jonathan and Nancy back without you.”

After a long pause, her facial expression regretful, Charlie insisted, “I’m not _whatever_ you think I am."

“But you get feelings about things, right?” Steve asked her. “Maybe feelings about people? Or you see things you can’t explain? Or you can move things? _Something_?”

Her eyes wide, and almost fearful, she asked, “What the fuck are you talking about?” 

“Just _please_ come talk to my sister. She can explain it better than I can.”

Charlie gave Steve another long, look, and then her voice was low and dangerous when she said, “Just stay away from me, Steve. I thought you were cool, but I really don’t appreciate whatever it is you think you’re doing here. Get the hell out.”

She closed the door, and locked it. 

“God, how can you be so _heartless_? You’re such an asshole! It’s no wonder you don’t have any friends!” Steve yelled back at her, before quickly regretting it. Still, he was too angry to do anything other than walk away.

He couldn’t just sit around at the cabin waiting for the others to figure shit out, so he decided to go look up the names Jonathan had given him. He went to the library, and the librarian helped him look up the marriage and birth announcements in the local paper.

He found the marriage announcement first. It was just a couple lines long.

_ Jonathan Marek and Nancy Curtis wed, July 18, in the presence of friends _ .

That was it. That was all the information the paper gave. Steve printed it out anyway.

Next he ran through the birth announcements. Day after day, starting in January 1965. Eventually, he made it to the one he needed to see. 

_ Parents J. and N. Marek welcomed daughter, Charlotte, on February 14.  _

Huh. A Valentine’s Day baby. 

The baby was born in 1965, which meant that they weren’t coming home until after she was born. Nancy wasn’t going to make it back to Steve in time for him to be there. He was going to miss it.

“Are you okay?” the librarian asked him, looking through her large glasses at him. “Do you want to print out this page, too?”

“No,” Steve said, pushing away from the microfiche machine. “Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome.”

Nancy was going to have a baby, and he wasn’t going to be there for it. This was all so wrong.

~*~

_ November 7, 1964 _

"Thank you, Mr. Summers," Jonathan said with a deep sigh, even though he'd known the chances of the experiment working had been really low.

"Oh, you're welcome," he said, allowing Miles to help him sit down on one of the kitchen chairs. "Were we as close as I thought we were with that one?"

"Yeah, we were," Jonathan told him, feeling more hopeful than he had half an hour ago. "We didn't quite get you across, but I'm sure Nancy got a better idea of what we're going to need for next time."

"Yeah," Nancy said, tearing a piece of paper from the recording device on the floor, "these harmonic patterns are completely different from the ones Mike sent me. It might have something to do with the timeline we're in. Or the fact that you’re the lead here and El is over there.” She started marking on the paper, setting it down on the table and taking a ruler to it.

Jonathan knew he was going to have to have Nancy explain that to him again when she could take more time to fill in the gaps. Right now, he could feel her brain going a mile a minute. Interrupting her would at this point would be a bad move. 

Mr. Summers leaned forward, taking Jonathan's hand. "How are you doing, son?"

The last month had been a whirlwind of working and doing everything he could to help Nancy. Jonathan hadn't had a chance to slow down and think about himself at all. Now that Mr. Summers had asked him to, he found he couldn't quite place how he was feeling. He just said, "I'm okay, thanks," and left it at that.

"Anything else we can do to help? I know several of our number have chosen to stay here, but those of us who haven't…?" Mr. Summers gave a careful smile. "They're getting anxious to leave."

"I mean, you guys have already chipped in a lot for the parts we needed. I guess if anyone knows how to solder, having their help would probably move things along," Jonathan said, rubbing at the healing burn on his thumb. 

"I'll see what I can do." Mr. Summers gestured for Miles to come help him up. "Now, to get back to business. Let me know when the opportunity to volunteer comes around again. I have to say, I'm excited to see if this will work."

Jonathan nodded. "I'll let you know."

Miles shook Jonathan's hand before he and Mr. Summers left, and then Jonathan was alone with Nancy again. 

He busied himself, making her a sandwich and a cup of tea, placing these in front of her and kissing her forehead. "Don't forget to eat, Nance. You and the baby need food."

"Right," she said, giving Jonathan a smile and tilting her head up for a kiss. 

After he indulged her and she started eating, Jonathan knelt down and put his hand over her belly. They had about three months left to go, according to the doctor. Just the other day, he'd managed to feel her kicking for the first time. With every passing day, it was getting easier and easier to connect to her, to get a feeling for the person she was going to be. The baby's feelings were pretty rudimentary, but she liked it when Nancy spoke to herself while working. She liked it when Jonathan rubbed Nancy's belly while they were lying in bed together. She liked it when the stereo was playing loud enough she could hear it.

She liked it when Jonathan thought nice thoughts in her direction.

Right now, she was sleepy and a little hungry. Jonathan kneeled down next to Nancy's chair, murmuring to the baby, "It's okay, kiddo. Your mom is eating now. You'll feel better in a minute."

Nancy gave a snorting little laugh and took another bite of her sandwich. 

The baby turned slightly, soothed and happy. She knew him, Jonathan was sure of it.

~*~

_ June 27, 1987 _

When he got back to the cabin, Steve sat in front of the kids and said, “Explain to me why time keeps going forward on both sides of the portal. Why can’t we just contact Jonathan earlier? Why does so much time have to pass for them, compared to for us?”

“That’s when we line up,” El said, like it was obvious.

“What do you _mean_?”

“Here,” Mike said, pulling out a new sheet of paper. He drew a straight line with an arrow at the end. “Normally, space-time moves like this. Only forward, with the past that way and the future in the direction of the arrow.”

“Okay,” Steve said. He understood that. 

“What we think is happening is that there was something about when El created the gate to the Upside Down that caused space-time to vibrate.” Mike drew the sort of wave shape Steve kind of remembered from Trig class. “But it’s also warped around in on itself. Like–” Mike sighed, looking over at Will for some help.

Will said, “Like when a wave hits a wall and reflects off it.”

Steve spread his hands out and told them, “I have no idea what that looks like.”

“Like an echo,” El told him. “But curved.”

“I know what an echo is,” Steve told her, “but otherwise you lost me again.”

“Here,” Mike said, drawing again. “The first apex of the echo connected November 6th to some unknown date in the past. Nancy estimated it to be about September, 1918.”

Next to the first wavy line, Mike drew another. From the tip of one of its peaks, Mike drew the second wave bigger in height – _amplitude_ , Steve remembered from math class – and each of its peaks touched the peaks of the smaller wave.

“These intersections are where we’ve been able to establish a connection,” Mike explained. “But look at how much more time they have to travel through,” he traced one of the large waves, “compared to us,” he continued, tracing the smaller wave.

Steve thought he was maybe starting to get it. “How often do these intersections happen?”

“We think almost instantaneously on our end, and every few minutes on Jonathan’s end,” Will answered. “Also, I’m pretty sure that when we establish a connection, our powers are flattening out these waves and making time move perfectly in parallel again.”

“Yeah, they’re not in slow-mo or anything,” Steve said.

“We’d be the ones in slow-mo,” Mike insisted. “But, yeah. Flattening out the vibrations takes a lot of energy, since it’s basically warping space time.”

Will added, “Like Star Trek.”

Steve had never seen Star Trek, so he asked, “If we flatten them out enough, will people stop getting sucked into the past? How do we stop this from happening to anyone else?”

Mike shook his head and shrugged. 

Will said, “If we can figure out how this started, we might have a better idea of how to stop it.”

“Well, eventually the time difference will dissipate,” Mike insisted. 

“In 1991,” El said. “When it might start sending people to the future instead.”

Steve shook his head, not ready to think about that. “Whatever. Did Nancy come up with something we can use?”

"Maybe," Mike said, unfolding a large paper with a series of drawings on it. "It looks promising." He sighed and shook his head. "If the others were here, they'd be able to give better feedback. Especially Max. She's really good at telling whether or not something can be built."

Steve sighed, looking over the drawing. He recognized Nancy's neat handwriting, but otherwise it didn't mean much to him. Still, it looked impressive. "Nancy did all this…"

"Jonathan helped," Will said, pointing to one of the diagrams, which had Jonathan's writing around it. "They're working together."

"They work well together," Steve said with a nod. Before he could get too morose about missing them, El wrapped her arms around his middle and gave him a tight hug. Steve hugged her back, saying, "Thanks."

~*~

_ November 26, 1964 _

Nancy was just finishing off a piece of the pumpkin pie Alexis had brought over when she saw Jonathan get _that_ look on his face. She asked him, "Incoming?"

Jonathan nodded, standing up from the table. He took the extra power device out of the closet and tossed the cable out the window, hurrying out the door to go plug it in and start the generator. Unfortunately, Nancy's device needed more power than the old electric lines to the cabin could handle. They'd had to resort to buying a gas-powered generator.

Nancy went to the phone and was about to dial Miles' number, when she realized he might not be there. Turning to Alexis, she asked, "Do you know where Miles is spending today?"

"I think he's spending it with Marcy Baker and her family," Alexis said, standing up and clearing away some of the plates and putting them in the sink. "Want me to run over to Mr. Summers' place? Meet Miles there?"

"Yeah, thanks," Nancy said, running her finger down the list of phone numbers taped to the wall next to the phone. She found Marcy Baker's number and dialed it in.

It was still ringing when Jonathan came back into the house, pulling the other power amplification device out of the closet and setting it next to the line he'd taped on the floor. For some reason, the portal always seemed to form in the exact same spot. When Nancy had asked Jonathan about it, he'd shrugged and said something about that being where the barrier was the thinnest.

Marcy's husband – Nancy thought his name was Harry – answered the phone, saying, "Happy Thanksgiving!"

"Hi. Happy Thanksgiving. This is Nancy Wheeler. Is Miles still there?"

"Yeah, I think he's still out back, playing football with the kids. You want me to put him on the phone?"

"Actually," Nancy said, thinking of the adjustments to the device she still had to make. Also, she wasn't sure how much Marcy had told her husband about what they were trying to do. "Could you just tell him Alexis is meeting him at Mr. Summers' house and that he needs to leave now? It's an emergency."

"Oh, are you sure? They're having such a good time."

Nancy tried not to get frustrated. "It's a time-sensitive emergency, sir. So if you could please just send him along?"

"Alright, okay. Have a nice holiday.”

“You, too, sir,” Nancy said, hanging up and sighing. She turned to Jonathan and asked, “Are you sure we should be trying to send Mr. Summers over before they can get their power machine going?”

“We have so long between windows,” Jonathan insisted, pulling Nancy into his arms and kissing her forehead. “I don’t think we can afford to waste the opportunity.”

“Okay,” Nancy said with a determined nod. “Okay. How long until contact?” She let go of Jonathan and made sure the recording device was on. Then she flipped on the power device and made sure the settings were right. “How does that feel?” she asked Jonathan when she got it all set.

He closed his eyes for a moment before saying, “Almost…” 

Nancy turned the waveform generator frequency one step faster. “Better?”

Jonathan shook his head. 

Nancy turned it two steps slower. “Now?”

Jonathan pressed his lips together for a moment, and then nodded. “Okay. Here we go.”

The portal opened. Jonathan lifted the extra power device, handing it off to Steve and Hopper. “We want to try a volunteer again,” he said, passing over the notebook of instructions that went with the device they’d built. “He’ll be here any minute.”

“How are you doing?” Joyce asked. 

Jonathan’s only response was to lift his eyebrows and look over at Nancy. She poked at the portal, just to be sure she still couldn’t go through (she couldn’t). “Fine. It’s been nice keeping busy with this project.”

Joyce nodded, a sad little smile on her face. 

That’s when Miles, Mr. Summers, and Alexis got back. “Let’s make this an exciting Thanksgiving!” Mr. Summers said, heading to the portal. 

Like before, the portal widened, and then Steve and Mike reached through to help Mr. Summers across the divide. Nancy carefully turned up the power output dial on her device as he crossed.

And like that, Mr. Summers was successfully on the other side. Mike cried out in triumph, but behind him El started to fall and the portal snapped shut. Nancy looked away from her device just in time to see Jonathan crumple as well, but luckily Miles was close enough to catch him and slow his fall. 

“Shit! Is he okay?” Nancy asked, turning off the power device before kneeling down on the floor next to where Miles had set Jonathan on the ground. 

Miles put his ear to Jonathan’s chest for a second, then sat up and put his fingers on Jonathan’s wrist. “He’s breathing. Pulse is a little fast and not as strong as I would like.”

Jonathan’s next breath sounded wet, and Nancy realized the mistake Miles had made. She turned Jonathan’s head to the left far enough that the blood could fall out his nose rather than down his throat.

“Does he always bleed like this?” Alexis asked, handing Nancy a dish towel. 

Using the towel to catch the blood before it could stain Jonathan’s clothes, or the floor, Nancy answered grimly, “Yes. Any time it’s difficult. He doesn’t usually pass out, though.”

“Hey, Jonathan,” Miles said, shaking his arm. “Jonathan? Come on, you’ve gotta wake up for me, buddy.”

It took a few more seconds, but then Jonathan took a deeper breath than he had been taking and coughed. He pushed weakly at the towel Nancy held to his face. "Honey?" she asked him. "Are you okay?"

"Mm," he said, coughing again, but putting his hand over Nancy's to hold the towel close. "There's not enough…" he said, his voice hoarse and thready. "There was a b-b-b… backlash."

"What kind of backlash?" Nancy asked, but Jonathan just shook his head again. 

"...hurts," he said, taking his hand from Nancy's and pressing it to his forehead.

Looking up at Miles and Alexis, Nancy asked, "Can you help me get him in bed? He needs to sleep this off."

"Sure," Miles said, putting his arms under Jonathan and lifting him without help. "They got Mr. Summers across, though, right? It worked?"

"Yeah, I think so," Nancy told him, pulling back the covers on the bed so Miles could set Jonathan down. "I guess we just have to wait and see if we hear back from the others."


	17. Backlash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The family works to figure out what went wrong, and to recruit more help.

_ June 27, 1987 _

Steve just barely got the volunteer past the boundary of the portal before it snapped shut. Sparks burst from one of Mike's devices, and all of the Byers (save Hopper) collapsed. Hopper managed to break Joyce's fall, and El sort of staggered, falling to her hands and her knees before collapsing the rest of the way. Jenny had been sitting on the floor already, but Will was the one who hit the ground hard.

"Shit!" Mike cried out, kneeling between Will and El. 

Steve would have checked on them too, except there was more popping from one of Mike's devices and it started on fire. 

"Mike!" Steve cried, going over to the device. "We need some water or something!"

"Don't be a dumbass," Mike said, scrambling to disconnect the device from the car battery it was attached to. 

"Here!" called Hopper, throwing the blanket Jenny had been sitting on at Steve. "Use that to smother it!"

Steve caught it and did as Hopper asked, throwing the blanket over Mike's device and patting at it until it seemed like it was out.

The old man looked around at everyone and said, "I take it that wasn't meant to happen."

"No," Hopper told him, brushing some hair out of Jenny's face and shaking her a little. "C'mon, Jen. Wake up."

"It worked," Mike said, going back to El and turning her onto her back. 

"Yeah, but at what cost?" Steve asked. Joyce was starting to stir, so he went over to Will, shifting him until he was on his back. He was still breathing, and when Steve put his ear on Will's chest, his heartbeat sounded steady. 

Steve sat back with a sigh. He called across the room, "Is Jenny okay?"

"Yeah," Hopper said, hugging her closely. He gave Mike a dangerous sort of look. "We're not doing it that way again."

Mike nodded, El's limp hand in his. "Yeah, no. Not again."

"Damn," said the old guy. 

~*~

_ November 27, 1964 _

When Jonathan woke up, it was to the sound of rain on the roof. There was a log smoldering in the fireplace and the lamp over the kitchen sink was still on, though the rest of the cabin was dark. Nancy was asleep next to him, curled close against the cold night air. 

He sat up, but got dizzy and had to lie down again. He waited a few minutes and then tried again, pushing himself up slowly. The dizziness stayed manageable, so Jonathan got out of bed. He put another log from the pile onto the fire, stoking up the coals to make sure it lit. Then he went to the kitchen and poured himself a big glass of water.

The clock on the kitchen stove said it was just shy of three am. Last he remembered, it had been mid-afternoon. Praying he'd only been out twelve hours and not thirty-six or longer, Jonathan opened the refrigerator. The experiment had overtaxed his powers, leaving him hungry for the sorts of food that would help his body heal. Luckily, there was plenty of leftover turkey and pie.

Jonathan was halfway through eating when Nancy got out of bed and came over to sit across from him at the table. She stole a piece of turkey from his plate, chewing it thoughtfully before asking, "Okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," he told her with a nod. There was a fragile aspect to her mood that made Jonathan ask, "Are _you_ okay?"

Nancy sighed, looking away from him. "I don't know. My machine caused a backlash. It _hurt_ you."

"You don't know it was your machine," Jonathan insisted, taking one bite of his pie before passing the whole plate over to Nancy. "I've passed out before, after doing hard things."

"No, you told me when it happened," she said with a sigh, pulling her hair back, away from her face. "Maybe you don't remember, but you told me there was a backlash. And –" She reached for the pile of books and papers at the other end of the table. "Look at this tape, how the signal shoots off the chart there at the end?"

Jonathan followed the trace with his finger, before asking Nancy, "What happened just before this spike? Was this when Mr. Summers made it through to the other side?"

Nancy shook her head. "It happened just after the portal closed. There's some _flaw_ or something in the device. What if we keep trying to use it and it ends up _killing_ you?"

"Maybe it only happened because you turned it up so far to get Mr. Summers across," Jonathan said, pointing to the increased signal about halfway up the tape. "When the portal closed, all that energy had to go somewhere."

Nancy's mouth fell open a little as she followed the data trace. "And since it's tuned to you…"

"Backlash," Jonathan said with a nod. He thought about this for a moment before saying, "Maybe I need some sort of control over it? So I can turn it up and down as needed?"

With a sigh, Nancy said, "Yeah, we can do that. We just have to separate the control panel from the device housing. Use wires long enough so you can have a little range of motion if you need it. Insulate the wires." She rubbed at her belly. "We have to tell them not to use the one we sent over. At least not yet."

"As soon as this headache resolves," Jonathan told her, "I'll get in the bath and try to get a message across."

"I still don't…" Nancy made a frustrated little noise. "I don't understand how it was so easy for you to get here, and so hard for us to get anyone _back_. I mean, all the theory says that traveling _forward_ in time should be easier. It's traveling _back_ that's supposed to be impossible."

Jonathan couldn't say he understood the theory like Nancy did. He just pointed out, "There's a lot about our lives that is supposed to be impossible. I mean, why the hell does the Upside Down have all the same buildings as the Rightside Up? The only explanation I've ever heard for that was Dustin and Mike's D&D theories."

"Well, there's the theory that it's actually a dimension superimposed over the real world," Nancy told Jonathan, taking the piece of pie from the middle of the table and carving off a bite. "Just a half-step away, like El says. And under normal circumstances, information only flows one way, from Rightside Up to Upside Down." She finished chewing the first bite and took another. " _Then_ there's the theory that the Upside Down is a _parallel_ dimension, which developed exactly the same as our world until something bad happened, and that's when it diverged from our universe. Like, it _used_ to have copies of all of us but the Mind Flayer won."

Jonathan pressed his eyes closed and shook his head, trying to rid himself of those mental images. "Thanks for the nightmares, Nance."

She snorted a tiny laugh and took another bite of pie. Halfway through chewing it, she asked, "Will said your powers have to do with manipulating hyperdimensions, right?"

"I think so…" Jonathan told her. "He didn't say it in those _exact_ words, but that sounds right."

"And _you_ can cross the boundary, but I can't."

Jonathan nodded, wondering where she was headed with this train of thought.

"What if…" She grabbed her notebook from the edge of the table and a pen. "What if the boundary is actually the limits of a small dimension superimposed over the real world of 1964? Like a bubble? Like the Upside Down, only with people from the future instead of monsters?"

"You were able to leave the Upside Down," Jonathan told her. "Why can't you leave here?"

"I had help leaving the Upside Down," Nancy told him. "And help getting there in the first place. I used the tear between dimensions that the demogorgon made."

"The twins and I have been trying to help you leave," Jonathan insisted. "We got Mr. Summers across."

Nancy finished off the piece of pie with a shrug. "Maybe I take more energy to get across. Maybe _because_ I've been to the Upside Down. You said that stuff sticks, right? Makes it harder for Jenny to read my thoughts."

"True," Jonathan told her. "Or maybe it's going to take more energy because you're technically _two_ people right now."

Setting down her fork, Nancy asked, "Is that a fat joke?"

Jonathan felt appalled. "No! Nancy I–"

Nancy broke into a smile, laughing. God, he should have noticed the lack of offense in her emotions. Somehow she still managed to pull one over on him.

Chuckling, Jonathan smiled back at her. "You're mean. I hope you're not planning on teaching our daughter to be this mean."

"Oh, I am," Nancy assured him with a sly smile. "Trust me. She's going to need it."

Jonathan remembered suddenly that he'd agreed to marry Nancy. God help him, she was his _wife_. Still, he'd marry her again in a heartbeat. He stood up and went to her, cupping her face in his hands and kissing her. "I trust you," he insisted. Then he kissed her again.

~*~

_ June 28, 1987 _

"I don't know," Steve heard Joyce say from the room she and Hop were sharing. "I really think we should consider bringing them to the hospital."

"And tell them what?" Hopper asked. "Our kids are psychics who overdid it? All the doctors who know anything about this are either back East, or were working for Execugen."

Joyce sighed. "Is this about the call you got from Murray?"

_ What call? _ Steve thought to himself. Nancy had been gone for a week, and Steve had fielded one call from Murray in that time. He'd managed to stall long enough to tell Murray Nancy would call him the next week. Except, it was almost next week and Nancy still wasn't back.

This was not to mention the call he'd had to field from the Sheriff, as well. He wasn't sure how many people knew that Nancy and Jonathan had been transported away. Mary Ann and Charlie both knew. Steve doubted that Charlie told anyone, but he wouldn't put it past Mary Ann to tell someone. It probably wasn't going to be long before the Sheriff found out. If he didn't already know.

"...a good thing we're away from home right now, is all I'm saying," Hopper said. 

Joyce said something in reply, but her voice was soft enough that Steve couldn't hear it from where he was trying to sleep on the couch. It had been more than a full day since Will and El had collapsed, and they still hadn't woken up. If it was up to Steve, he probably would have sided with Joyce, insisting on bringing in a doctor. The thing that made him hesitate was the understanding distrust and fear of doctors that Jonathan had developed since December. 

Steve had seen El have that same sort of fear back when she'd gotten strep throat her freshman year of high school. It had taken Steve and Joyce both going to her doctor's appointment with her, before she agreed to go. 

So, doctors were a no go.

This led to Steve lying on the couch, in front of the dark fireplace, not sleeping and trying to convince himself he didn't need to go check on the twins again. They would be fine.

Of course, Steve couldn't help but think about the other kids like El – the ones Brenner had pushed too hard. They'd been killed by brain aneurysms. Steve wondered what the symptoms of a brain aneurysm were, and whether he or any of the others would recognize them.

Steve had been spiraling down that path of thoughts for a good twenty minutes, when a sound from one of the bedrooms drew his attention. He sat up, looking over the back of the couch, and saw Will standing at the door to his room, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. 

"You're awake!" Steve said, keeping his voice to a low murmur to avoid waking Mike and the others. "Are you okay?"

His eyes wide, Will nodded. He wobbled into the room, sitting down in the easy chair next to the couch. "How long was I out?"

"Over a day," Steve told him, standing up and going over to Will. Crouching down in front of him, Steve noticed the way Will wasn't quite focusing on him. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Blinking a few times, Will finally focused. He nodded. "Yeah, sorry. I just… was checking on the others."

"Are _they_ okay?"

Will nodded again. "Jenny and Mom are sleeping. El is …" Will shivered.

Frowning, Steve told Will, "I don't like the sound of that."

"No, she'll be okay," Will insisted. "She's protecting herself, staying asleep this long. Just, the longer she stays under, the worse the nightmares get."

Steve thought this over for a moment, before wondering if Will was talking more from experience than from being psychic. "Did you have nightmares?"

"A few," Will said with a nod. "But it's okay. I'm okay."

Steve sighed, wishing he could tell when Will was taking on too much. Jonathan would be able to tell. All Steve was good at was feeding people – and he wasn't even very good at that.

Like he'd been reading Steve's thoughts (and maybe he had), Will said, "I could use a sandwich or something, Steve. Maybe a glass of milk?"

"You got it, buddy," Steve said, squeezing Will's shoulder before he stood up and went to the kitchen. Making sure Will ate something definitely beat trying and failing to sleep, alone and in an unfamiliar place.

~*~

_ January 11, 1965 _

Jonathan was in the bath after a long day at work, when he finally heard El’s voice.

_ Jonathan? _

Dropping into the Inbetween with her, Jonathan asked, “Are you okay? It’s been so long since I heard from you.”

“It took some time to recover,” she told him. “Something went wrong.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I thought it was just on this end. The power generator caused a backlash when the portal closed. What happened on your end?”

“There was a–“ El took Jonathan’s hand and showed her a memory, instead of telling him in words. 

As Mr. Summers stepped through the portal, there was some sort of instability. El tried her best to compensate, but she would have needed to draw more than she wanted to from Joyce and, especially, from Jenny. 

“We’re trying to make the devices more tunable,” Jonathan insisted. “To help compensate for that sort of instability. The one we gave you doesn’t have it yet.”

“Our data collector is fried,” El told him. “Compensating is going to be difficult without it. I wish–” El sighed. 

“What?” he asked, annoyed that he couldn’t read her surface emotions from this far away. It felt like being half-blind. 

“I wish we had another _me_ ,” she told him. “Or another _you_. Mom has hit a wall with her strength and Jenny is too fragile. We need someone old enough, or young enough. Kali is out of the country… Steve’s friend could work, but she won’t talk to him.”

“Which friend?” Jonathan asked, and El showed him Charlie’s face. 

God, it had been so long. Jonathan had almost forgotten about her. “Try again,” Jonathan insisted. “From what I remember, she’s angry and scared. Lonely. I think maybe you know something about that.”

El gave Jonathan a bashful smile and nodded. “Okay.”

“How is Mr. Summers? Did you get him past the boundary?”

“Dad says yes. They delivered him to Mr. Coombs while I was resting.”

“Good,” Jonathan said, starting to feel the blood trickle down from his left nostril. “When should I expect to hear back from you again?”

“Later today, our time,” El told Jonathan, pulling him into a tight hug. “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Jonathan insisted, hugging her back. She dissolved as the connection broke and Jonathan rose back up out of the Inbetween. 

~*~

_ June 29, 1987 _

Steve put the finishing touches on his letter while El and Will made their final preparations. They weren’t using the device Jonathan and Nancy had provided them during the last contact. El said something was wrong with it. 

After what had happened last time, Steve could understand their hesitance. In fact, Hopper had taken Jenny on a walk outside the cabin, so she wouldn’t be there and in danger just in case something decided to blow up again. 

“Almost ready,” El said, which was Steve’s cue to put his letter in the envelope and gather up the rest of the things they thought Nancy and Jonathan might need. 

The recording device was still fried, despite Mike’s best efforts to replace the parts that had been damaged by the fire. Without that device, and without the one that Jonathan and Nancy had sent over, there was remarkably little to get ready. 

El, Will and Joyce all sat on the floor, soft pillows around them just in case. Mike had the stack of books. Steve had the letters.

Will said, “Here we go.”

The portal opened. Jonathan took the letters and the books, saying, “It’s good to finally see you guys.”

“It’s been two days on our end,” Steve told him, taking from Jonathan the little device with long wires he was handed. Steve set it on the floor so he could help Mike with the other device that Jonathan passed over. 

Nancy joined Jonathan, and she was so much bigger than the last time Steve saw her. Tearing up, because he knew he was going to miss the baby being born, Steve gave Nancy a sad wave. “Love you guys.”

“Love y–”

The portal closed before Nancy could finish replying. 

“Moving stuff isn’t so hard,” El said from behind Steve. “Moving people is.”

“Are these devices going to be enough? Do you think?” Mike asked, opening the envelope that was taped to the side of the bigger device. 

“No,” El said, standing up. She stood right in front of Steve and said, “Jonathan wants us to talk to your friend again. We need her help.”

“I don’t know if we can convince her,” Steve said with a sigh. “But I suppose we don’t give up in this family, do we?”

“We don’t give up,” El insisted. She took Steve’s hand. “Come on. You and I are going now.”

“Now?” Steve asked, but he let El lead him from the cabin anyway. “I suppose it’s midday. She might be awake by now.”

“We won’t know until we go look.”

“Okay,” Steve said, unlocking the Chevy and getting in the driver’s seat. El took shotgun. “The others know where we’re going?”

“Will does,” El told him, and that was good enough for Steve. 

Back in town, Steve parked next to Mary Ann’s house. He looked out at it and asked El, “Any chance you can tell whether she’s in there? And awake?”

“She’s there,” El said with a nod. “Not asleep, but… not quite awake either. She feels kind of… fuzzy.”

Steve told her, “I don’t want to know what that means,” and got out of the car. He figured they might have better luck at the kitchen door, so he went and knocked there.

The door opened a few seconds later, and Charlie was grinning. “Steve!” she cried, leaning out the door and wrapping her arms around him. He didn’t have to ask about her change in attitude. He could smell the alcohol on her. 

“Hey, Charlie,” he said, patting her arm and enduring a kiss on his cheek. “Can we come in? I’ll even make you some coffee.”

“You always make it too weak,” she insisted, pouting, but when she turned away from the door, she left it open. Steve followed her in. 

He gestured for El to follow him, and asked her, “Been around any drunk people before?”

El shook her head, but she looked determined. “That stuff is dulling her abilities. We need it out of her system.”

“Coffee,” Steve insisted, heading over to the coffee machine and getting it brewing. 

Charlie wandered out of the kitchen and when Steve found her, she was sitting in the living room, nursing a bottle of whiskey. “Hey,” he said, sitting on the coffee table in front of her. “How long have you been drinking like this?”

“All weekend,” she said, letting Steve take the bottle out of her hand. “Ever since you were mean to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve told her, taking Charlie’s hands and meeting her eyes. When she focused on him, he continued. “I’m sorry I made fun of you for not having friends. I’m your friend and I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You’re gonna leave, though,” Charlie said, leaning forward, pressing her forehead against his chest. “You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met in this town, and at the end of the summer, you’re going to leave. Everyone leaves.”

“Hey,” Steve said, rubbing her arm, like that was going to help her sober up. “Do you want to make another friend? I promise, she’s way more interesting than I am.”

Charlie looked up and furrowed her eyebrows at him. “What friend?”

“Hello,” El said, carefully sitting down on the armchair at the far end of the couch. “Charlie, my name is El.”

“Like the letter?” Charlie asked, and El smiled. 

“Short for Eleven, the number,” she replied. “I was raised in a lab, because of my abilities.”

That was a little more forward than Steve had been expecting, but alright. 

Charlie blinked at El a few times before asking, “No shit?”

“No shit.” El held a completely straight face. “Four years ago, when I was twelve, something really bad happened. People went missing. Some got killed. I escaped the lab.” She shifted to sit on the couch next to Charlie. “Did something bad happen to you too?”

Very slowly, Charlie nodded her head. “It’ll be four years since.”

“In November?” El asked her, and Charlie nodded again. 

“Can you tell us what happened?” Steve asked, watching El make another tiny shift toward Charlie. 

“You wouldn’t believe me,” Charlie insisted, putting her hand on Steve’s wrist. “Wouldn’t believe me.”

“We’ve seen some pretty fucked up, unbelievable shit,” Steve assured her. “We’ll believe you.”

“It was…” Charlie shivered. “I was dreaming, only I was awake. And in the dream, I was this other person. Like a kid. A boy. I was running away from a _monster_ , but it knew me. It knew how to find me. It _needed_ me.”

“What did you do?” El asked, watching Charlie’s face intently.

“I went out behind the house,” she said. “There was a shed and I knew there was a shotgun out there. I got it down and I started loading the bullets into it.”

“Shells,” Steve said, which made El glare at him like he was in the wrong for correcting Charlie. He probably was. “Sorry.”

“Did you shoot the monster?” El asked Charlie.

Charlie shook her head. “I thought it was going to come at me from the door, but it… it…” She pushed a tear away from her eye and took a shaky breath. “It came out of the wall instead.”

_ Came out of the wall _ ? Steve looked at El, who returned his look with a significant nod. Shit, it was the same monster. The demogorgon. 

“I screamed, and then I woke up in that… that _fucking_ cabin out in Cedarville. The one from that picture we found.” Charlie’s hand shook, and she said, “Shit. I need a cigarette. I…”

She reached for the whisky bottle, but Steve moved it out of her reach, saying, “Wait. Just wait. How did you sleepwalk all the way out there?”

“I didn’t!” Charlie insisted, pushing her hand back into her short hair. “I was just at home, then I was out there. Like no time had passed.”

“Teleportation,” El said in a soft voice, before telling Steve, “Will and I wondered if it was possible.”

“Charlie?” Steve asked her, putting his hand over hers. “This is really important. What day did this happen?”

“N-November 6th,” she said, looking down at her hand in Steve’s.

El asked her, “1983?”

Charlie nodded. 

“It wasn’t a dream,” El told Charlie, scooting closer and putting her hand over Charlie’s as well. “The boy you saw?”

Charlie nodded. 

“That was my brother, Will.”

“Oh, shit,” Steve whispered, looking at El for a second before returning his attention to Charlie. Steve had only ever had the barest idea of what Will had gone through. "It was?"

El nodded.

“Did the monster get him?” Charlie asked her. “I always wanted to know.”

Shaking her head, El told Charlie, “No. He...went to a different place. Kind of like you did. He hid.”

Charlie’s eyes went wider. “That was it! I was trying to hide. I wanted to hide so bad, to get away from that _thing_!”

“Something went wrong, though,” El told her. “You teleported and space-time became unstable. I–” El looked down at her lap. “I made a mistake, too. When I got scared, I ripped open a hole in the universe. I let the monster in. It’s my fault.”

“Wait,” Steve said, looking over at El. “Are you saying Charlie started this whole thing? The people disappearing? The time travel? Everything?”

“Time travel?” Charlie asked, unfocused and blinking at Steve. 

Shit, he probably shouldn't have said that out loud.

“I’m gonna get that coffee,” he insisted, standing up and taking the whiskey bottle with him into the kitchen. He put it up on the highest shelf he could reach and then poured the coffee into a mug. He was pretty sure Charlie took it black, but he took Mary Ann’s little sugar bowl with him when he went back to the living room just in case. 

“I have a few brothers and sisters still living,” El was telling Charlie. “And four adopted ones,” she said, smiling over at Steve when he set the coffee down in front of Charlie. 

“Does that mean you have powers?” Charlie asked Steve, swaying a little bit as she watched him sit in the chair across from the couch. 

“No,” Steve told her. “Did get my body taken over by one of her brothers once. That was weird.”

“Nine was a bad man,” El said, nodding in agreement.

“I still kinda think you guys are yanking my chain.” Charlie picked up the coffee and took a sip. “You talked to my ex or something, didn’t you? Got the story out of him?”

When Charlie put the coffee down, El held out her hand and used her mind to pull the sugar bowl through the air and into her grasp. “ _Now_ what do you think?” El asked Charlie. 

“I’m hallucinating,” Charlie insisted. “The drinking finally caught up to me, and I’m hallucinating.”

“When his abilities really started kicking in, Jonathan drank to cope,” Steve told Charlie. “It helped dull them, so being in the city didn’t hurt him so much.”

“His abilities hurt?” Charlie took another sip of her coffee. “Is that what I’ve been doing?”

El leaned until Charlie met her gaze. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. Only what you’re _going_ to do. Will you help us?”

Charlie took a few more sips. Her voice shaky and horrified, she asked, “You think I caused the whole disappearing thing?”

El nodded. 

“Well, then I suppose I’ve got to help.” Charlie said. “It’s only right.”

“You’ll have to get sober,” Steve warned her. “It won’t work until you are. 

“What do you want me to do, anyway?” Charlie asked. “I don’t even know what I _did_ back then. Maybe you’ve got the wrong–”

“We don’t,” El said simply. “And I’ll teach you what needs to be done.”

“Jesus,” Charlie said, taking another sip of coffee. “This is so fucked up.”

Steve couldn’t agree more. 


	18. Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy and Jonathan revise their device and welcome a new arrival.

_ January 21, 1965 _

While Jonathan rested, Nancy opened the envelope Steve had sent them. There was a letter from Will and Mike explaining the books they’d sent, and how Nancy could use them. She set that letter aside. There was one to Jonathan from his mother. And there was one from Steve, addressed to both her and Jonathan. 

Nancy decided to read it first by herself. 

_ Dear Jonathan and Nancy, _

_ I feel like I’m missing everything. It’s no one’s fault, but it still sucks. I wanted to feel the baby kick and talk to it and everything. I wanted to take care of you. I hate not being able to do that.  _

_ The time is going by so fast on your end. You’ve been gone a little over a week, and it feels like you've been gone forever. I can’t imagine how hard it is for you guys. You still remember me, right? _

_ Anyway, I figured that if I wasn’t going to be there, at least I could suggest some names. I was thinking Charlotte if it’s a girl, and Dustin (or maybe Robin or Robert) if it’s a boy. If you hate those names, pick something else. I just wanted to contribute somehow.  _

_ I love you. I hope you guys still love me.  _

_ You'll have spent so much time together, just the two of you. Promise me you'll give it a shot? The three of us together again? Maybe not quite how it used to be, because of the baby and you guys got married and everything, but still good? It could still be good, right? _

_ I really don't want to figure out who I am without you guys. Because that kid from before? He was an idiot, just like you used to say, Nance.  _

_ Anyway, just know that I'm thinking about you guys, all the time. Every second of every day you're not here with me. _

_ Love always and forever, _

_ Steve _

Nancy sniffed, wiping her eyes. Steve was right. When they got back to him, things _would_ be different than they had been before. However, in no way could she imagine being in the same place as Steve and _not_ wanting to be with him anymore. He was the missing piece in her relationship with Jonathan. Everything for the past nine months had felt off-kilter, like sitting in a chair that had one leg too short. She and Jonathan had gotten used to living together. That hadn't been a problem. Not really.

But sometimes Nancy felt like Jonathan was giving her too much. He was too accommodating. He never fought back about anything, even about the little things that didn't really matter. At first, Nancy thought it was because of the baby, but now she wasn't quite sure. 

For a few weeks, she'd watched him closely, making sure he wasn't falling back into the habit of using alcohol to cope. If he had, he was hiding it from her _extremely_ well. Mostly she thought he hadn't because he needed his abilities to get back home. To get back to Steve. 

She thought sometimes that he'd left all his fight back in 1987 with Steve. Like, without Steve to poke and prod at him all the time, he forgot how to stand up for himself. Either that, or being without Steve had made him too depressed to fight for anything. Anything except the fight to get back where they belonged. _That_ he focused on.

In the back of her mind, Nancy wondered if Jonathan's behavior meant that he loved Steve more than he loved her. It was a stupid thing to wonder about, really. Of course he did. 

Nancy had known it to be true for a long time. 

It wasn't just the extra time they'd spent together, like Nancy had thought at first. In high school, the two of them had more freedom to spend the night together. They'd had two years of living together since Steve graduated. It was a lot of shared time.

But here, in this place, Nancy had spent _so much_ time with Jonathan. They'd grown closer. Of course they had. Nancy knew better how Jonathan moved around the house. She knew better how he looked when he was feeling fragile, when he needed someone to hold him. She knew better how to make him smile. 

Still, it wasn't enough. She couldn't figure out how to make Jonathan back into _himself_ , and it was a frustrating state of affairs. It _hurt_. 

It made her wonder. If this baby hadn't happened, would Jonathan have taken the opportunity to go back to Steve when he first got it? She had no doubts that they would have kept trying to get her back, but Nancy wasn't sure Jonathan would have exiled himself with her. Not if he hadn't already promised to take care of her. 

The petty little gremlin in the back of her head wanted to point out that Nancy was giving Jonathan something Steve couldn't – a baby. Nancy recognized that it was a stupid thought. It wasn't like they'd planned it. It wasn't like this was some magnanimous _gift_ that Nancy was giving Jonathan out of the goodness of her heart. 

It was just dumb luck. Biology. Life.

Stupid girl plus stupid boy, sleeping in the same bed, equals stupid baby.

Nancy rubbed her belly and thought, _Sorry. I don't really think you're stupid_.

Steve wanted to help name the baby. She looked back over the letter and ran her finger over the name _Charlotte_. It was a nice name, pretty and a little old-fashioned. Nancy had no idea where Steve had gotten it from. She didn't think he had any relatives named Charlotte. Not that Steve talked too much about his extended family. Besides a grandmother who had passed away when Steve was in middle school, Nancy was fairly certain he didn't actually _have_ any extended family. 

In fact, back when Tony had asked what she wanted her name to be for her fake birth certificate, she had told him Nancy Curtis, after Charlotte Curtis, a female journalist she looked up to. Well, if she could name herself after Charlotte Curtis, she could name her baby after the woman too. Especially since Steve obviously liked the name. If Jonathan didn't _hate_ it, maybe it would work.

"What do you think?" Nancy asked softly, rubbing her belly. "Do you want us to call you Charlotte?"

The baby moved a little bit, but didn't kick hard or anything.

"Maybe your dad is wrong, and you're a boy," she said, rubbing her belly again. "Do you like Dustin better?"

Nothing.

"I guess not. What about Robin?"

Still nothing.

"You fell asleep, didn't you?"

A soft laugh from the other end of the room drew Nancy's attention. She turned in her chair to see Jonathan awake and watching her.

"Excuse me," she said with a playful smile. "I'm having a private conversation here."

Jonathan rolled his eyes, but he was smiling too. "No, you're not," he said as he got out of bed and came over to her. "She did fall asleep."

"You can tell?" Nancy asked him, greeting Jonathan with a kiss. He kneeled on the floor next to her and put his hand on her belly.

"Yeah, I can tell," he insisted. "She's a whole person at this point." He looked up at Nancy. "Not too much longer before we get to meet her."

"Any time in the next month or so, according to the doctor," Nancy said in agreement. She picked up Steve's letter and gave it to Jonathan. "Steve wants us to name her Charlotte."

"Yeah?" Jonathan asked, taking the letter and reading through it. His eyes got a little shiny, like he might cry, but he nodded. "I like it. Do you?"

"I do," Nancy told Jonathan, putting her hand over his. "I like it."

~*~

_ June 29, 1987 _

Steve pulled up outside the cabin, and parked. He looked over at Charlie and warned her, "There's people inside. Just … I know you're not much of a people person. So, get ready for that."

"How many people?" she asked, looking over at him, then at El in the back seat.

"Just five besides us," El told her. "Not everyone."

Charlie gave Steve a pleading look. "How many is _everyone_?"

"Twelve, I think?" Steve said, looking back at El. "No, wait. Thirteen, since Mom and Hop adopted Jenny."

El nodded. "Lucky number."

Steve laughed and got out of the car. He had to wait a minute before Charlie followed, but she did eventually. He thought maybe he shouldn't have let her sober up all the way before bringing her here. A little bit of liquid courage might have done her a bit of good. Then again, the risk of her getting sick in his car on the winding mountain roads while drunk made him think he'd made the right decision.

El led the way into the house, and Steve let Charlie follow her, him bringing up the rear. He told himself that Charlie wasn't going to just run out on them. Not when she'd come this far, but he didn't know that for sure. She hadn't let him know her well enough to make a good guess when it came to her behavior and what sorts of things would set her off. 

When he got into the cabin, Mike, Will, and Joyce were all sitting in the middle of the main room, fiddling with the devices Nancy had sent over. He didn't see Hopper or Jenny, but he had a feeling Jenny had gotten bored and Hop had taken her out of the house to preserve everyone else's sanity. 

Will was the first one to look up, pushing his safety glasses up onto his head, squashing his bangs down in front of his forehead. Beside Steve, Charlie took a sharp breath and she pointed at Will. "You're the boy."

"I'm _a_ boy," he said, giving El a questioning look. 

El nodded at whatever he'd asked her. 

"I didn't recognize you before, at Ed's," Charlie said, her eyes still on Will. "You're older."

Will stood up, brushing his hands on his jeans as he took a few steps closer to Charlie. He held his hands out to her and raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, okay," Charlie said with a nod, and Steve realized he was missing part of the conversation. Whatever. If this was what it took to get Charlie up to speed and helping, that was fine with Steve.

Charlie put her hands in Will's and closed her eyes.

Steve went and sat down on the floor next to the couch. He nodded to Mike and asked, "Need any help with that?"

"Yeah," Mike said, nodding him over. "Can you hold that there?"

Steve held two wires up and close together, while Mike twisted the ends and put them in some sort of plastic cap. 

Nodding toward Charlie and Will, Mike asked, "Do you know what they're doing?"

"Vaguely," Steve told him. "Apparently when the demogorgon was after Will, Charlie had a vision of it happening. El thinks it set off this whole space time vibration _thing_."

Mike frowned for a moment, before turning his attention back to the task at hand, taking the wires out of Steve's hands.

"Here, honey, come hold this," Joyce said to Steve, and he shuffled over. "I just need the glue to set, okay?"

"Okay," Steve replied, taking the thing from Joyce and watching as she went over and asked El something in a soft whisper. 

El nodded.

Then Charlie opened her eyes. "That's a–" She looked around the room. "That's a _trip_."

"What did you do?" Mike asked Will.

"Took her to the Inbetween," Will replied, taking Charlie's hand and leading her over to the couch, where she gratefully sat down. "Showed her my memories of that day."

"That's exactly what I saw," Charlie said with an earnest nod. "That... _thing_. How did you get away from it?"

"I … teleported," Will told Charlie, "for lack of a better word. Into a shadow dimension. The Upside Down."

"Jesus," she sighed, pressing her face into her hands. "Never thought I'd be grateful that I only traveled a couple miles."

"But you did it at the exact same moment I did," Will insisted, looking over at Mike and Steve, then at his mom. "It has to mean something."

"We'll figure it out later," El insisted. "Right now, we have to get ready for our next attempt."

Nodding, Will said, "We've got one done already. Nancy says we have to tune them to each of us individually.”

“Tune them how?” Steve asked, hoping his hands weren’t getting glued to the machine he was holding.

“She just says to keep changing the frequency until it ‘feels right’,” Mike said, holding up a page of Nancy’s handwritten notes. “I’m guessing you’d have to ask Jonathan what that means.”

“Turn it on,” said El, and Mike shrugged, but he went over and plugged Nancy’s machine into the wall. 

“She says to keep the power really low except for when the portal is open,” Mike added, turning one of the knobs. Then he threw a switch, the machine coming on with an audible hum. “I guess, just let me know when to stop?”

El nodded and closed her eyes. Mike watched her as he turned another knob, very slowly. Eventually, Steve got bored and looked away, watching all of the others. Then suddenly, everyone except for Mike and Steve said in unison, “There.”

“Um, okay,” said Mike. “Are you guys sure?”

“Yeah,” El told him with a fond smile. “That feels right.”

“It’s … nice,” Joyce added, a confused expression on her face.

“Nice,” Charlie agreed, looking even more confused than Joyce.

“I suppose,” Will said, sharing a look with Mike. “We might not need the other one. If we all harmonize or whatever with this one.”

“No, remember how wiped you guys were after the last time?” Steve said. “If we’re going to bring them back without overloading you guys, we should use everything we’ve got.”

“I agree,” said Mike. “Besides, it’s almost done. It’ll take maybe an hour.”

“We should use that time,” El said to Charlie, taking her hand. “Come with me. I’ll show you what we need you to do.”

“Sure, fine. Whatever,” Charlie said, though she looked a little scared. 

Steve nudged Will with his foot. “Maybe make sure she doesn’t push Charlie too far?”

Will nodded and followed the two of them into El and Jenny’s room.

Nodding toward Mike, Steve said, "Just tell me what to do, man. Every minute we spend doing this is, like, _hours_ Nancy and Jonathan have to wait."

"I know," Mike nodded, and the sad expression on his face made Steve feel a little like he wasn't alone in missing Nancy and Jonathan.

~*~

_ February 13th, 1965 _

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather have a deadman switch on this?" Nancy asked Jonathan from across the room. She was sitting at the table, soldering some components together while Jonathan shaved at the bathroom sink. The cabin was dark except for the bathroom light and the bright reading lamp Nancy had at the table. 

"I don't even like how that _sounds_ ," he told her, rinsing his razor under the faucet. 

With a little chuckle, Nancy said, "It's just a switch you would have to hold to keep the power on. If you started getting weak or passed out, it would cut the power and prevent a backlash."

"Or, I get momentarily distracted and the portal shuts _through_ someone," Jonathan pointed out, shuddering at that mental image. "Yeah, no thanks."

"Suit yourself," Nancy said, going back to her work.

As he finished shaving, Jonathan caught some slight distress from Nancy. He didn't think too much of it. Her mood was always a little changeable these days. Except as Jonathan pulled his pajama shirt on and started buttoning it, he felt Nancy’s distress again. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, walking across the room as he did up the last few buttons. 

“What?” Nancy asked, more than a little absorbed in what she was doing.

“I asked if you were okay.”

Nancy frowned for a second. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she insisted, setting down the soldering iron and pushing her hair out of her face. “I’m just a little tired.”

“Sweetheart, we can finish this in the morning,” Jonathan said. “I’m sure it’s going to be at least a few days before we need it.”

Nancy sighed. “Maybe. I just–” She frowned, feeling that little bit of distress again. This time, Jonathan watched as she put her hand on her lower belly, rubbing it.

“Nancy.”

“Hmm?” she asked, getting out of her chair and going to the kitchen cupboards. She took down a glass and filled it with water. “What, Jonathan?”

Well, there was no better way to ask this than to be straightforward about it. “Are you having contractions?”

“No,” Nancy insisted, taking a long sip of water. “It’s just the practice ones that the doctor told us about. He said drinking water would help. So,” she lifted her glass in a little mock-toast, “that’s what I’m doing.”

She headed back for the table, but Jonathan headed her off. “Just in case they aren’t practice ones, how about I take over?”

“But I was right in the middle of–”

“Nancy,” Jonathan insisted, putting his hands on her face and getting her to look at him. “Sweetheart, please? Just to–to _humor_ me, okay?”

Nancy rolled her eyes, but said, “Fine.” Then she gave him a kiss. “If it gets screwed up, I’m blaming you.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He sat down at the table and said, “Okay. What are we trying to do here?”

“We’re trying to–” Nancy stopped and pressed her lips together. She took a few steps away from the table before pacing back. "We're trying to finish wiring up this dial so it controls both the waveform generators in parallel."

"Are you sure we’re not going to get weird harmonics trying to run two of them?” Jonathan asked, but he picked up the soldering iron anyway. 

Nancy shook her head, leaning over the table. “We’ll space the generators out just right. It’ll be good.” She pointed. “See that connection I just made? We’ve got to get the negative lead attached over there.”

“Ah,” said Jonathan, getting to work. It only took a minute, but by the time he was done, Nancy was pacing around again. And pissed. “I’m calling the doctor.”

Jonathan knew he was right when she didn’t argue, just stood there, leaning with both hands against the wall, and nodded. 

He switched off the soldering iron and picked up the phone.

~*~

_ February 14, 1965 _

“This is...the worst,” Nancy insisted, as the pressure started to squeeze down on her again. She was kneeling next to the bed, her head and arms on it, her belly hanging low. Honestly, it was the only position she’d found that didn’t make her want to rip someone’s face off. 

“Try and breathe,” Jonathan said, his hand clasped in hers. 

Nancy breathed, because he was right, but she didn’t acknowledge him. She had more important things to do. Her body felt like one giant contraction, and yeah it _hurt_ , but mostly it was just _intense_ and out of her control. 

She pulled Jonathan’s hand closer, resting her forehead on it. The contraction eased and she took a few deep breaths, calming down as best she could. “They’re getting really close together,” she told him. “There’s another one coming…”

“I know, baby,” he said, kissing her temple. “Miles and Alexis are here. It’s the middle of the night, but the doctor will be here soon. You’re doing so good.”

The next contraction hit and Nancy couldn’t focus on anything else. She made a low moaning sound that seemed to help get through the pain without clenching up and making it worse. As it eased, Nancy told Jonathan, “The next time we do this… will be in a _hospital_ … with _so many_ … _drugs_!”

“Next time?” Jonathan asked.

Nancy went back to ignoring him, riding out the last little bit of the contraction. 

When she could hear again, Dr. Jackson was leaning on the bed, trying to get eye-to-eye with her. “Nancy? Can I check how far along you are? See if you’re ready to start pushing?”

Nancy looked him straight in the eye and told him, “Anyone who touches me _dies_.”

He nodded. “Yeah, you’re ready to start pushing. How about, can I try to take your blood pressure?”

“If you feel like _dying_ ,” she replied, groaning and putting her forehead back down on the bed, blocking out the light. Except she couldn’t get enough air!

Nancy shoved back from the bed, letting go of Jonathan’s hand and leaning into the contraction, breathing through it now that she had some open air beneath her face. 

The towel beneath her knees felt suddenly warm and wet, the liquid running down her thighs. “What…?”

“It’s just your water breaking,” a woman’s voice said in Nancy’s ear. Surprised, Nancy looked over at the stranger. “I’m Patty. I’m a maternity nurse. I work with Dr. Jackson.”

Nancy nodded. “I can push?” she asked.

“If you feel like it, honey, you go right ahead,” Patty insisted. “You’ve got this.”

“I’ve got this,” Nancy nodded, taking Patty’s hand when she offered it. Then she looked to her left for Jonathan, and grabbed his hand, too.

The next contraction hit, and Patty said, “Okay, deep breath, then hold it and push.”

Nancy did as she was asked and pushed, but she could tell there wasn’t enough room. When the contraction eased up, she shifted, getting her feet underneath her and squatting down, leaning more of her weight onto the bed so she could hold herself up. 

On the next contraction, the pushing felt better. More right. It burned like hell, but Nancy kept going. If this baby was coming today, then like hell was she going to hesitate in getting it _out_.

She took a few deep breaths and the next contraction started. Patty told her to push, so Nancy pushed. She shifted her hips a little and then the pressure eased. More fluid gushed down and then there was just  _relief._

Nancy was still catching her breath when Patty said, “Okay, now honey. Can you turn a bit for me? Let’s get you sitting down, at least.”

Nancy turned, easing herself down to sort of sitting, but mostly leaning back against Jonathan. Dr. Jackson set something warm and wrapped in a blanket against her chest. 

Oh, right. The baby.

Nancy cradled it in her arms and moved the blanket so she could see its face. It looked up at her with dark grey eyes, focusing on her. “Hey,” she said, touching its tiny little face. “Hi.”

“It’s a girl,” said Dr. Jackson, laying a thick blanket over Nancy’s lap and legs. “We’ll cut the cord here in a minute.”

“I told you she was a girl,” Jonathan murmured in Nancy’s ear, reaching around her to touch the baby’s fuzzy little cheek.

“Charlotte,” Nancy said, tearing her eyes away from the baby to look up at Jonathan. “That’s her name.”

“Yeah, it is,” Jonathan agreed. He kissed Nancy’s hair and held her tight. “Hi, Charlotte. I’m your dad.”

Nancy watched Charlotte’s eyes look over her shoulder. 

“She knows you.”

“And I know her,” Jonathan insisted, rubbing his thumb back against her cheek again.

Nancy looked over at the nurse, who was helping the doctor clamp off the umbilical cord. “Shouldn’t she be crying or something?”

Patty shook her head. “She’s breathing well. I’m sure she’ll cry when we take her to get washed up and weighed.”

“She doesn’t have anything to cry about,” Jonathan said, kissing Nancy’s head again. “She’s just feeling nice, looking at us.”

Nancy smiled. Maybe babies weren’t so bad.


	19. The Decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A successful trial of Nancy's device is followed by a revelation.

_ June 29, 1987 _

“Everything set?” El asked, looking around the room. Steve stood in front of the portal line, ready to help pull over the next volunteer. 

Mike called out from the back of the room, “We’re good to go on power. Generator’s holding steady!”

“Are we sure we have to do this _here?_ ” Charlie asked, looking around the dark cabin like something was going to jump out at her.

Will and El said, “We’re sure,” in unison. 

Then El said, “Here we go,” and the portal opened, blinking into existence. 

Jonathan was on the other side, a control knob in his hands. He called out, “Now!”

The power devices hummed louder, and the portal grew wider. A man with dark hair and a pack on his back stuck his arm through, and Steve pulled him the rest of the way. 

The portal didn’t go down this time. Jonathan grinned. 

“Send another!” cried El. “Come on!”

This time it was a young woman who Steve helped across the barrier. She made it through, immediately clutching onto the man.

“That’s it for now,” Jonathan insisted. Except he held up a hand. “Wait.”

Nancy stepped forward. She had a bundle in her arms and a smile on her face. 

“Is that…?” Steve asked, and Nancy nodded. 

“We named her Charlotte,” she said, waving Steve closer. “Like you wanted.”

Steve’s breath caught in his throat. His chest tightened with emotion. “Oh, my god!”

He reached for the baby.

Nancy reached for him, and stumbled partway through the portal. Steve caught her before she could fall.

“What?” she cried, taking another half-step forward.

The bundle in her arms stopped at the barrier. 

“Oh, no,” Steve whispered. 

But then Jonathan called out from behind Nancy, “Step back! I’m starting to lose it!”

A man on Nancy’s end pulled her back and Steve had to let her go. The portal dropped, and the power generators went silent as Will turned them down. 

“Hey,” said the man who’d come across, getting Steve’s attention. “Nancy and Jonathan wanted me to give you this.”

He handed Steve an envelope, and it felt heavier than just a few pieces of paper. 

Joyce and Hopper spoke to the two new people, but Steve focused on the envelope. He took it closer to the work lamp in the corner, opening it and finding half a dozen black-and-white photos of the baby along with a letter.

“Can I see?” asked Will at Steve’s shoulder. 

“Yeah,” Steve told him, handing over the photos as he looked at them. “Wow.”

“Nancy said her name is Charlotte?” Will asked.

Steve nodded. “Yeah.” Then he nudged Will’s arm, “Your niece.”

“Oh my god,” Will said with a little snort. “I’m an uncle!” Then he raised his voice, “Mike! You’re an uncle too!”

“Fucking hell!” Mike replied, working on taking down the equipment. 

Joyce and El joined them. Handing a picture to Joyce, Steve said, “You’re a grandma.”

“Jesus, I’m not old enough to be a grandma,” she insisted, but she smiled and teared up at the picture just the same.

A minute later, as Steve pocketed the letter and one of the pictures, just for himself, he went to go help Mike tear down the equipment. 

Charlie sat down next to him, saying, “That’s gotta be weird. Two weeks ago, Nancy wasn’t even pregnant. Now they’ve got a kid.”

“Yeah, weird,” Steve agreed, trying not to think about the fact that the baby hadn’t been able to go through the portal. Maybe Jonathan had just been too tired. “But cool.”

“So, does this mean you’re, like, a step-dad now or something?” Charlie asked him, and Steve couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of it all.

“I guess so,” he answered with a shrug. He finished wrapping up the last cable and lifted the device. “You want me to drop you off in town with the newbies? Otherwise, you could go with the others. There’s another couch at our cabin. If, you know, you didn’t want to be alone.”

Looking around the room and following Steve out to his car, Charlie asked, “Which answer gets me out of here the fastest?”

“Probably going with me,” Steve told her, digging his keys out of his pocket and opening the trunk of his car. He set the device inside, put his keys back in his pocket, and closed the trunk. “I mean, I don’t blame you if you want to go back to Mary Ann’s. Tomorrow is waffle day.”

Charlie laughed and nodded. “Right, I can’t miss waffle day two weeks in a row.” But then she looked back at the abandoned cabin and the people coming out of it. “That was cool,” she said softly. “I’ve never… no one’s ever needed me like that before.”

Steve felt weird that he didn’t know the answer to the question, so he asked it, “Do you have a family?”

Charlie nodded. “My parents moved to Arizona last year. I’ve got some aunts and uncles around different places. A few cousins.” She shrugged. “I’m not very close to them. Not how you guys are close.”

Steve stood next to Charlie and nudged her shoulder with his arm. “We’ll adopt you. If you let us.”

Charlie gave a small sigh, but she didn’t _say_ no.

Then he remembered. “I think I saw a waffle iron hiding in the kitchen at the cabin. We could make our own waffles in the morning.”

“That’s a nice plan,” Charlie told him, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I like that plan.”

“Good.”

~*~

_ June 30, 1987 _

Steve woke up too early, given the late night they’d had the night before. The summer sun was bright and in his face and already the cabin was a touch too warm. He should have talked Mr. Jenson down further on the rent. No wonder he couldn’t keep this place rented during the summer. It got too hot!

Still, when Steve opened the kitchen window, the mountain air was cooler, and the thought of making waffles didn’t seem so uncomfortable. There was still pancake mix left over from a few days ago, so Steve pulled it out of the cupboard and followed the directions on the box for making waffles. 

The first one to follow Steve into the kitchen was Charlie, but that was likely due to being in the same open space and smelling the first waffle when it came off the iron. She didn’t speak to Steve, but she did start the coffee and then claim the first waffle. 

The next person to the kitchen was Jenny. “Hi, Steve!” she said, bouncing on her toes a little as she gave him a hug around his hips. “Do we have whipped cream for the waffles?”

“Dunno, squirt,” Steve said, messing up her hair. “Check the fridge.”

She pulled a can of spray-whipped cream out, and took it with her to sit down at the table next to Charlie. Then she called out, “Hey, Steve! Look at this!”

Steve turned around to see Jenny spraying the cream directly into her mouth. “Nice one!”

“Do you want to try?” Jenny asked, holding the can out to Charlie.

Charlie was frowning, but she took the can, opened her mouth, and sprayed a huge dollop onto her tongue. 

Jenny broke out into a peal of bright laughter, leaning over and hanging on Charlie’s arm. “That was awesome!” Then she looked at Charlie again and said, “Oh. I know who you are.”

“I’m Steve’s friend,” Charlie told her, looking over to Steve like she needed some help. 

He shrugged. “Jen? Who do you think Charlie is?”

Jenny reached across the table and picked up one of the pictures Nancy and Jonathan had sent. She set it down in front of Charlie and said, “There. That’s you. Don’t you remember?”

“Jenny, that’s not–” Steve started to say, but as he went around the table and really _looked_ at Charlie, he could see it. “Oh my god.”

Steve pulled out a chair, because he had to sit down. "Holy shit…"

Charlie’s eyes were Nancy’s eyes, only brown like Jonathan’s. Her chin was square like Nancy’s. Her cheekbones were high like Jonathan’s. Her short hair had a little bit of a curl in it, like Nancy’s. God, even her hands looked like Nancy’s, all long-fingered and bony. Her eyebrows were all Joyce. 

“Holy shit!”

“What?” Charlie asked, looking back and forth between Steve and Jenny. “That’s not…”

Jenny put her hand on Charlie’s arm and closed her eyes.

The waffle iron beeped. Steve went to it mechanically, taking the waffle out and putting it on a plate for Jenny.

“Oh, my god!” Charlie said, looking up at Steve. “That can’t be right.” She looked over at Jenny, who was happily spraying whipped cream onto her waffle. “Whose memory is that?”

“Yours,” Jenny insisted.

Steve had to sit back down. 

He asked Charlie, “What’s your full name?”

She frowned at him for a moment, before whispering, “Charlotte Robin Everly.”

“Robin,” Steve repeated, covering his face because it was just too much to handle. “They named you Charlotte Robin. Shit.” He wiped some of the tears out of his eyes. “When were you born?”

“Valentine’s Day, 1965,” she said, watching Steve intently. “Why? You don’t think…” She picked up the picture and held up so Steve could see it. “I’m _not_ this baby. How could I be? My parents are Hank and Marsha Everly. They live in _Arizona_!”

“Same birthday,” Steve insisted. “You have the same name and the same birthday, and god, now I know why you look so familiar. And why you have abilities. You got them from Jonathan.”

Charlie frowned down at her plate. “If… if I am who you think I am, that means… That means I was _adopted_." She looked over at Jenny for a long moment before turning to Steve. "Why did Nancy and Jonathan leave me here? How could they just… give me away?”

From where he was standing in the living room, Will said, “I think they had to.”

He came into the kitchen and sat down across from Charlie. He reached across the table for her. 

Putting her hand in Will’s, Charlie asked, “Why would they have to?”

“Because we couldn’t bring them home without you here, now, grown up and helping us,” Will explained. 

Charlie looked down at the picture again. “So, I only exist to bring them back here? I only exist to be abandoned to someone else when my parents wanted to go back to their real homes? They didn’t– they didn’t love me enough to stay with me?”

Steve felt frustrated and angry on behalf of Nancy and Jonathan. He grabbed the letter out of his pocket and slapped it down on the table in front of Charlie. “Read that and tell me again that they didn’t love you.”

Charlie glared at Steve, but she read the letter. Steve had read it the night before, a couple times. It was just the story of how Charlie was born, but the way Jonathan had written it left no room for arguments. He and Nancy _loved_ their little girl.

Folding the letter back up, Charlie wiped her face on her sleeve. “I just… I grew up feeling so _alone_ , and not knowing why. I have to know _why_.”

“Then, let’s ask them,” Will said, giving Charlie an encouraging smile. 

~*~

_ February 19, 1965 _

“Here we are.” Red stopped short of the boundary line, putting his Jeep into park. Joe Coombs was leaning up against his parked tow-truck, just on the other side of the line. 

Jonathan got out of the Jeep, pushing his seat forward and reaching to take the baby from Nancy and into his arms. He held Charlotte close with one arm, and used the other to help Nancy climb out. She moved slowly, still recovering from the other day.

“Hey, folks,” Joe said, walking through the boundary like it didn't exist. "How's everyone doing?"

"Low on sleep," Jonathan told him, "but otherwise okay." When Nancy reached for Charlotte, he handed the baby over. "How are you doing, Joe?"

"No complaints, besides this damn snow," he replied, kicking at the packed snow on the road. "County salt trucks don't usually get out this way very often. Makes for a few exciting drives up here."

"Thank you for coming," Nancy told him, walking closer to the boundary. "You're sure she'll be able to cross it?"

"Pretty sure," Joe told her, holding his arms out for the baby. When Nancy hesitated, Joe told her, "I'll go nice and slow, give her right back. I promise."

Nancy nodded and carefully put Charlotte into his arms. Jonathan had been reading Charlotte constantly since before she was born, and he was surprised to note that she didn't mind being held by Joe. He did have a calming sort of demeanor.

Joe turned and took several steps, again crossing the boundary like it wasn't there. Jonathan guessed that for him and Charlotte, it _wasn't_. Joe came back, saying, "See? Just like me and my mother."

"I want to try again," Nancy told Jonathan, putting her hand in his. "Try pulling me across. I want to know if it's possible."

Jonathan nodded and held tight to Nancy's hand. He closed his eyes so he could better see the curved edge of the boundary. Taking a deep breath, he gathered his strength and _pushed_ through it, only stopping when Nancy's fingers hit the edge. He pulled, but it was no use. "You're still stuck."

Letting go of Jonathan's hand, Nancy nodded and wiped a tear from her cheek. "That's what I thought. The only way out is the portal. The sixties know I don't belong here."

Jonathan didn't know how to talk about the fact that they'd both seen the portal stop Charlotte from going through it. Just like Nancy had been unable to cross before, while she was pregnant with Charlotte. Just like he and Nancy didn't belong in the sixties, it seemed like Charlotte didn't belong in the eighties, and Jonathan had no idea what to do about that.

~*~

_ June 30, 1987 _

As the portal opened, Nancy stood right in front of it, holding the baby in her arms. She looked up at Steve, meeting his eyes. "We want to try this one more time," she said. She took a careful step forward, and again stopped when the baby hit the boundary of the portal. Her forearms and the tips of her toes were on Steve's side of the divide, but that was it.

Steve shook his head. "Babe, it's not going to work," he told Nancy, reaching through and putting his hand on her face. "More power isn't going to help."

"Why?" Nancy asked him, her jaw set and clenched.

"Because," he said, turning back to point at Charlie. "She's already here."

Steve watched Nancy and Jonathan both follow the line of his finger and land on Charlie. Charlie took a few steps forward, one hand still in El's. She waved awkwardly. "Hi, guys."

"What do you mean–" Nancy started to ask, but Jonathan said, "Ohhhh."

Stepping closer to the portal, Jonathan asked Charlie, "It doesn't work without you there, does it?"

Charlie shrugged and looked back at El, who shook her head. "No. She stabilizes the whole thing."

"You left me," Charlie said, her eyes on Nancy's face. "Is this why?"

Nancy reached through the portal, taking Charlie's hand. "Were you happy?" she demanded. "All this time without us? Have you had a good life?"

"I was happy for awhile," Charlie said with a nod. "Some of the time."

~*~

_ March 8, 1965 _

Nancy held two versions of her daughter, one in each arm, and told Charlie, "If I stay here with you, in Cedarville, I will be trapped. I won't ever get to drop you off at school. I won't ever get to take you on vacation. I won't get to have the career I've been working toward and dreaming about."

She swallowed nervously, holding baby Charlotte closer.

Sniffling, Nancy told Charlie, "I would love you _fiercely_ , but I would also _resent_ you. I–" How was Nancy supposed to encapsulate in words everything she was feeling? How was she supposed to express the ache of knowing that there was no best outcome? There were only two shitty choices, and neither one of them came with any less heartbreak than the other.

She looked over to Jonathan for help. He stepped closer and told Charlie, "We've asked around. The Everly family wants to adopt you."

Nancy squeezed Charlie's hand again. "It's your decision. Do you want the life you've had with them? Or do you want a different life with us?"

Charlie looked across the divide at Nancy, her eyes wide and devastated. "You would stay with me?" she asked. "If I wanted you to?"

Nancy gave her a solemn nod. "I would. I couldn't promise we would be _happy_ or that it would be any better than the life you've already had, but we would be together. If that's what you want."

"What would happen to the life I've already had?"

"We don't know," Jonathan told her. "We don't know what would happen to Tony or Alexis either."

"The two people who came through last night?" Charlie asked him, and Jonathan nodded. 

The time difference still caught Nancy off guard sometimes. It had been three weeks since Tony and Alexis had left. It had been three weeks of Nancy getting used to having Charlotte in her arms, getting used to the way she smelled.

The thought of giving her up felt like it violated every instinct she'd ever had. And yet, Nancy knew that as much as she _would_ be a mother if necessary, she really didn't _want_ to be one. Not now. Maybe not ever. Already, she had Jonathan doing most everything except feeding the baby. Nancy had also grown sick of doing _that_. If she stayed here much longer, she knew she would switch to feeding Charlotte formula. That way someone other than her could be responsible for feedings.

It hurt to know that even as much as she loved this little tiny person in her arms, she still didn't want all of the responsibility that came with her. Not now. Not yet.

"Let me think about it?" Charlie asked.

Nancy nodded and drew her hand back. "Just… either way, we love you, okay?"

Charlie nodded. "Okay."

The portal closed and Nancy was left alone again, trapped in this tiny cabin, with this tiny baby, and with Jonathan solid at her back.

"God," Nancy whispered, holding Charlotte close and kissing her forehead. "I hope she makes the right decision."

"She will," Jonathan said, wrapping his arms around both of them. "I kind of think she already has."

~*~

_ June 30, 1987 _

When Steve found Charlie, she was sitting on a fallen log next to a tiny stream that ran through the forest. She had a pinecone in her hand, and pulled its scales off one by one, throwing them into the stream. 

"Hey," Steve said gently, sitting down next to her. "What are you thinking?"

"It's not fair," Charlie said, throwing another piece of the pinecone away. "They shouldn't have asked me to make this decision."

"Why not?" Steve asked her.

" _Because_ ," she said, "if I pick what's already happened, I know how it turns out. I _don't_ know how the other way would turn out. What if Nancy's right, and she would end up resenting me? They're just kids, Steve. My parents, my _other_ parents, they were in their 30s when I was born. They were ready."

Steve put his arm around Charlie. "I guess there's good parts and bad parts of everyone's life, right?"

"Right," Charlie said with a nod, wiping a tear from her cheek. 

"Are the good parts of your life worth keeping the bad parts? Or do you want to start from scratch and gamble that this other life could be better?"

She shrugged and put her head on Steve's shoulder. "I think I'm too scared to do that," she told him. "I'm too scared if I make them stay with me, the person who I am now won't exist anymore. Who would I turn into?"

"I don't know," Steve said, squeezing Charlie closer. "I have to say, I really like the person you are now."

With a scoff, Charlie said, "You're just trying to get me to agree to bringing Nancy and Jonathan back to you. Ulterior motives."

"Well, yeah," Steve agreed. "But think about it this way. If you let things happen the way they've already happened, sure you don't get to have Nancy and Jonathan around while you're growing up. _But_ , you could get to know them here, in this time. Where they belong. You wouldn't have to give up on having a family who understands you and loves you."

"You guys love me?" Charlie looked down and pushed at a leaf with her shoe. "You don't even know me."

"We know you well enough," Steve insisted. "You're part Nancy and part Jonathan. That's good enough for me. Good enough for the others, too."

She didn't seem very convinced by that argument, still looking down at the ground.

"Look," Steve said with a sigh. "I know blood isn't everything. I never talk to my dad anymore. I just recently started talking to my mom again." He ducked down, making sure she was listening to him. "But I do know that you've got to be some sort of stupid to pass up on an offer to be part of _this_ family."

"Because of the crazy mind powers?" she asked, finally looking over.

"No, Charlie," he said, keeping his gaze on hers. "Because being a Byers? It means we look after our own. It means we _never_ give up."

Looking away for just a second, Charlie asked, "What do you mean _never_?"

"I mean," Steve held her gaze as best he could, "when one of us is in trouble, the others do whatever it takes to help them, to save them." He pointed back at the cabin. "Every one of us has needed some sort of saving, and every time the others pitched in and saved us."

"Including you?"

" _Especially_ me, are you kidding?" Steve asked with a morose laugh. "Besides _literally_ saving my life, they gave me a home and a family when I didn't have either." He shook her a little bit. "You could come back to the midwest with us. You know, if the only thing keeping you here is habit. You could have that, too."

Charlie let out a soft sob and shook her head. "No, I _can't_. I'm an _asshole_. People never want me around. They get sick of me and I drive them away."

"Maybe," Steve told her. "But those people weren't Byerses. Remember how I told you we never give up?"

"You don't even give up on assholes?" Charlie asked, wiping her nose on the back of her sleeve.

With a conspiratorial whisper, Steve told her, "You should have seen how much of an asshole I was in high school." 

Charlie laughed.

"Also, Hop's mostly chill right now, but when he wants to be, he can be a _gigantic_ asshole," Steve insisted, making her laugh again. 

After a long, silent moment, Charlie said, "Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Being part of a family like yours. It might get me to stop…" She shook her head. "I don't know. Stop looking _backward_ , maybe? Move forward instead."

"Sounds like you might be making a decision," Steve pointed out.

Charlie pushed her hand back into her hair the exact same way Jonathan always did. Steve kicked himself for not seeing the resemblance earlier.

"Yeah," she told him. "Yeah, I think maybe I have."

~*~

_ March 31, 1965 _

Nancy could barely see as she signed the papers in front of her, so many tears welled up in her eyes. "They know they won't be able to contact us, right?" she asked the lawyer, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief Miles had given her.

"Yes, that's right," the lawyer said, watching as Jonathan signed the papers, too. "It's a completely closed adoption. No expectations for contact."

Jonathan had to wipe his face as he finished signing as well. 

And then it was done. Charlotte belonged to someone else.

The social worker who'd come to the house with the lawyer asked, "Would you like a few moments with her? To say goodbye?"

Nancy nodded, pushing back from the table and going over to the side of the room, where Charlotte was sleeping in her crib. She thought maybe it would be easier, not holding her one last time, but then she realized that she didn't want to regret _not_ holding her. Nancy picked her up, shushing her softly when she stirred and complained. 

"It's okay," she told Charlotte, very sure that things were _not_ okay. Things were just the way they had to be. Charlie had made her decision, and it was Nancy's job to honor that decision. "I'll see you again when you're older. You won't even remember me, but I promise, I'll never forget you." 

She kissed Charlotte on the forehead.

"Goodbye."

Before she could second guess herself, Nancy gave Charlotte over to Jonathan. She made herself watch Jonathan say goodbye too, but she was crying too hard to hear what he whispered to her. 

Just a minute later, Jonathan put Charlotte in the social worker's arms. "You should take her now," he said, sniffling and wiping his face, "before we try to change our minds."

The woman nodded and left the cabin. Nancy held her breath, waiting to hear Charlotte start crying or something, but there was nothing. She was quiet. Probably back asleep already.

Jonathan handed the lawyer the packed bag of all Charlotte's things, and then he left as well.

Nancy went to the door and watched as the lawyer started his car, and drove away, headed down to Logan and Charlotte's new family. In a few minutes, they'd pass the boundary, and Nancy wouldn't be able to follow.

Overcome with emotion, Nancy turned and found Jonathan beside her. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. "I–" she tried to say, but she was crying too hard to get the words out. Eventually she caught her breath. "I don't want to be here without her, Jonathan."

"I know," he replied, holding her close and swaying the two of them back and forth, just a bit.

"I want to get out of this place," she insisted. "I want to go _home_."

His face resting on her forehead, Jonathan nodded. "Soon, sweetheart. They're bringing us home soon. Any day now."


	20. Reunion

_ July 1, 1987 _

It was just past midnight when El told everyone, "It's time."

Steve took a deep breath and prepared himself. Maybe he wasn't psychic and he wasn't in charge of doing what El and the others could do, but this was still going to be difficult. Nancy and Jonathan were coming home. They were coming home different than how they'd left, and Steve told himself he had to be prepared.

The portal opened, and when Will turned up the power it opened wide enough to step through. The first person to come through was a man with blond hair – Steve thought he might have been Morgan Wyatt's boyfriend, Miles, only almost a decade older. 

Then it was Nancy's turn. Steve directed Miles back toward Hopper and turned back to the portal. He opened his arms and Nancy smiled. She hopped through the portal and wrapped her arms around him, and Steve hugged her back, holding her close. "You're real," he said with a sad chuckle. "You're here."

"I'm here," Nancy said, squeezing him once more before turning to face the portal again. 

Jonathan stood on the other side, asking, "Are you ready? I don't know how long it's going to hold once I step through."

"We've got you," Will told him, hands still on the power device. El had one hand wrapped around Will's arm, the other in Charlie's hand. Charlie held Joyce's hand, and Hopper and Jenny stood next to Joyce, just in case Jenny needed to help too.

"Come on, babe," Steve told him, waving Jonathan across.

He took a little bit of a running start, and jumped. Steve and Nancy caught him. By the time the portal closed, Steve had both arms wrapped around Jonathan and his face pressed tight against Jonathan's neck. 

After a moment, Steve brought Nancy back in too, and it felt like he could finally breathe again. "Welcome back," he murmured, kissing the first part of either of them he could reach, which turned out to be Nancy's jaw.

"We missed you so much," Nancy whispered, pulling him into a hard, almost desperate kiss. 

Jonathan's hand brushed over Steve's hair, and as soon as Steve turned, Jonathan's lips were on his. Steve kissed him back and had to actively stop himself from licking into Jonathan's mouth. As much as he wanted to reconnect the best way he knew how, they currently had far too much company.

So Steve pulled back just far enough to press his forehead against Jonathan's. "You guys didn't forget about me, huh?"

"Like we could _ever_ forget," Jonathan said with a scoff, kissing Steve again. As Steve made himself pull back from Jonathan again, Nancy left them. 

Steve watched as she went over to Charlie, standing in front of her and saying, "Giving you up was the hardest thing I've ever had to do."

"Um, thank you?" Charlie replied.

Nancy had to look up to meet Charlie's eyes. "Can I … hug you? Would that be okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Charlie said, wrapping her arms around Nancy and hugging her.

Steve leaned closer to Jonathan, murmuring in his ear, "They grow up so fast!"

A smile spread over Jonathan's face and he cracked, laughing against Steve's shoulder. "You have _no_ idea."

Then Jonathan left Steve's side, hugging everyone as he made his way over to Nancy and Charlie. Charlie let Jonathan cup her face in his hands, nodding when he said something to her silently. "I know," she told him out loud.

"Is it just me," asked Will as he and Mike started packing up, "or does this place feel different?"

"No, it definitely does," Charlie told him. "It's not as creepy."

"You know," said Nancy leaning back against Steve but addressing Charlie, "you were born in this room. You lived here the first six weeks you were alive."

Charlie gaped at that information, looking to Jonathan, who confirmed it with a nod. 

"Maybe that's why you ended up back here that night," Will said, a thoughtful look on his face. "Your subconscious thought of it as a safe place."

Shaking her head, Charlie said, "Yeah, I don't know. Maybe."

"C'mon," Hopper said, squeezing Steve's shoulder. "Let's get everything in the cars. It's the middle of the night."

"Right," Steve said, giving Nancy one last hug. Then he worked with the others to finish breaking down everything. They got the generator trailer attached onto the station wagon's trailer hitch, and then piled everyone into the cars. Jonathan sat shotgun in the Chevy, with Nancy, Charlie, and Miles in the back. The others all ended up in the station wagon, and they all left the old abandoned cabin, driving through the pitch-dark woods back to town.

Steve walked with Miles from the road up to Joe Coombs' house, knocking on the door. It took a few minutes, but eventually the door opened, and it was that Tony guy standing in the doorway. "Miles!" he cried, pulling the newcomer into a hug and showing him inside. 

Before he left, Steve said to Miles, "So, yeah. We're working on what to tell the Sheriff and the newspapers and everything. I'm sure now that Nancy's back she'll think of something soon. But just, don't go out anywhere yet. We don't want the wrong people seeing you before it's time."

"Sure thing," Miles replied with a nod. "I mean, driving past that boundary was pretty freeing. I think I can handle a few more days stuck in a house with my friends."

Steve gave him one last nod, then got back in the car.

"Charlie?" he asked as he backed out of Joe's driveway. "Am I bringing you to Mary Ann's, or are you coming home with us again?"

"I'm coming with you guys," Charlie insisted. "The last waffle breakfast you promised me was kind of ruined."

"What happened to the waffles?" Jonathan asked. 

Steve said, "It wasn't the waffles that ruined the meal. It was the seven-year-old finding memories from when Charlie was a baby."

"That _was_ pretty insane." Charlie laughed softly. "I guess that kid is, what? My adopted aunt?"

"Yeah," Nancy said. "I mean, the _more_ insane part is the fact that you're technically older than both your parents, even if we add on the almost-year Jonathan and I spent in the sixties."

"Wait," Steve said, throwing a glance at Nancy in the rear view mirror, but it was too dark to see her. "Does that mean you guys are older than me now?"

Jonathan said, "Well, yeah. Technically we've been alive longer than you."

"Come on!" Steve cried. "That was like the _one_ thing I had! I was the oldest!"

"Well, now you're the youngest," Jonathan told him, leaning over and adding, "baby."

Steve said, "Fuck you," but he was laughing, so it kind of took away from the impact. 

In the back seat, Nancy gasped. "Watch your language in front of our daughter!" And then, because she was mean, she added, "Baby."

"You guys are asking for it," Steve told them, heading back up into the foothills and the cabin where the rest of the family was probably already falling asleep.

Jonathan reached over and put his hand on Steve's right wrist. Steve let go of the steering wheel with his right hand and let Jonathan tangle their fingers together. He smiled at Jonathan and drove through the night, feeling more at home than he had since leaving Chicago.

~*~

Jonathan followed Steve and Nancy into the cabin, not quite sure what to expect. His mom was waiting up for them, saying, “Charlie, you’re on the couch again. Jenny’s on the other one. You three, we pushed together the beds in the girls’ room.”

“Where’s El?” Steve asked, giving Joyce a half-hug in thanks. 

“We’re pretending she’s sleeping in the recliner, and _not_ in the boys’ room.”

Jonathan laughed a little, wondering if Hop was the one they were pretending for. He gave his mother a long hug, knowing he wanted to tell her about everything that had happened over the past year. But it could wait, at least until morning. 

Steve led them to a room that did look a little weird with two twin beds pushed next to each other, but overall it was a sleeping surface big enough for the three of them. After Steve closed the door, Jonathan gravitated toward him. He took Steve’s hand and held it. Then he used his free hand to pull Steve into a kiss. 

The kiss made Jonathan ache to have Steve’s hands on him. He groaned as softly as he could manage and pulled Steve toward the bed. Already panting hard, Jonathan whispered, “ _Please_ tell me you have lube somewhere close by, baby.”

“Shit,” Steve said, giving Jonathan another kiss before pulling back and taking off his shirt. Then he went digging through one of the bags in the corner.

Jonathan wrapped his empty arms around Nancy, asking her, “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” she told him, turning in his arms. “Very much _not_ in the mood to get pregnant again.”

Jonathan laughed and kissed her, brushing her hair back over her shoulders. “We’ll get some condoms tomorrow. Let you have a turn.”

“It’s been over six weeks since I could have sex,” Nancy told him. “Tomorrow, I’m getting _all_ the turns.”

Jonathan laughed and kissed Nancy again, setting his hands on her hips, then sliding them back onto her ass and squeezing gently.

Steve joined them, pressing tight against Jonathan’s back and murmuring, “Careful. That’s how you two got in trouble last time.”

Jonathan laughed and let Steve take his shirt. He shivered when Steve sucked kisses across his shoulders, and didn’t stop himself from tilting his hips back and rubbing his ass against Steve’s hardon. “Oh, god. You have no idea how badly I need to get fucked.”

Steve groaned and pulled at Jonathan’s jeans, getting them loose and helping push them down. Jonathan turned and undid Steve’s pants, while Nancy kissed Steve. Then she murmured to Steve, “I could never quite scratch that itch for him, even though we tried, didn’t we, sweetheart?”

“We did try,” Jonathan agreed, wrapping his hand around Steve’s cock and shivering at the feel of stroking it. “But all we had were fingers, and it just wasn’t…”

“It wasn’t enough,” Nancy said as Steve groaned and tilted his head back, steadying himself with a hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. Nancy traced her fingers down Jonathan’s arm. “C’mere, Jonathan,” she said, tugging him toward the bed. “I wanna hold you while Steve fucks you.”

“Yeah,” Jonathan said to her, letting go of Steve and following Nancy up onto the bed. Nancy shimmied out of her pants and her shirt, but left on her bra and panties. Then she pulled Jonathan close. He thought she meant to hold him face-to-face so he could kiss her, but then she urged him to turn around and face Steve, resting his head on the pillow she placed in her lap. 

“I missed you guys so much,” Steve said as he crawled up the bed. He kissed Nancy for a long moment before dipping down and kissing Jonathan. “How much did you miss me?”

“So much,” Jonathan insisted, his cock dribbling precome onto his stomach. He caught Steve’s face with his hands and pulled him into a deep kiss of longing. “You make us whole, baby.”

“You’re our missing piece,” Nancy said in agreement, running her fingers back through Steve’s hair.

“ _Please_ ,” Jonathan urged him, pulling Steve closer with his hands and one foot.

“Fuck,” Steve muttered, reaching over for the lube and slicking himself up. “Did you get too tight on me?” he asked, pressing another dollop of lube against Jonathan’s hole with two fingers.

Jonathan relaxed and they slipped right in. He had to bite his lip to keep from shouting out at the tiny bit of relief he felt having Steve inside him again.

“Guess not,” Steve said, leaning forward and kissing Jonathan again. And then, still while kissing, Steve pressed his cock against Jonathan’s hole and slipped in. 

“Fuck,” Jonathan breathed, his whole body lighting up at the sensation of being stretched. “Oh, baby. Please, come on. More!”

Nancy ran her hands up and down Jonathan’s chest, soothing him as Steve fucked his way in, driving deeper with each thrust. 

“This...what you need?” Steve asked as he bottomed out, pressing his stomach down against Jonathan’s cock and grinding in a heart-stoppingly slow arc before pulling out and thrusting in again. 

Every nerve in Jonathan’s body felt energized, and the relief was so powerful, tears welled up in his eyes. He gripped Nancy’s hand and whispered, “Yesyesyesyesyes, yes!”

Nancy brushed the tears off Jonathan’s cheeks and told Steve, “Look at how happy you’re making him, baby. God, keep going. He needs to come so badly!”

Steve found just the right rhythm and Jonathan could tell how good it was for him too, and Nancy loved them both so much. Overwhelmed by all the sensations, Jonathan arched his back and came, clenching his teeth so he wouldn’t cry out.

“Oh, Jesus, fuck,” Steve muttered, kissing Nancy and thrusting three more times before he came too, shuddering on top of and inside Jonathan, filling him up and stretching him out just right. Jonathan held him close as he finished coming, and was rewarded with a set of deep tongue kisses. “Love you so much, Jonathan.”

“Yes, love you, too,” Jonathan insisted, sighing as Steve pulled out. When Steve started licking at the come on his chest, Jonathan laughed. Of course Steve wanted to taste him. Of course. 

Looking up at Nancy, Jonathan asked her, “What can we do for you, Nance?”

“Well, first I need you both to put clothes on,” she told them. “And also wash your hands and brush your teeth.”

Steve was mid-lick when he looked up at her and asked, “Why?”

“Because,” she said, “sperm is my enemy right now and you two are entirely too full of it. And _covered_ in it.”

Jonathan broke into laughter, reaching up and pulling Nancy down to kiss him. “You’re adorable when you’re paranoid.”

“It’s not paranoid if you’re _right_ ,” she said. “I fucked you _once_ without protection and we made a baby who accidentally caused an interdimensional incident that cost real, actual lives. I’m not looking to repeat that mistake.”

“Our lives are so damn weird,” Steve said, but he stood up and pulled Jonathan to his feet. “C’mon, babe. Let’s do as the lady asks. It’s gonna be morning before too long.”

“Hey,” Jonathan said, catching Steve before he could get away and pulling him into a kiss. He licked into Steve’s mouth and tasted himself there, and it was good. It was so good.

~*~

_ July 1, 1987 _

Nancy woke up sandwiched between Steve and Jonathan, early morning light coming in through the window. She realized that despite her best efforts, she’d fallen asleep right after sending them to the bathroom to get cleaned up the night before. She blamed still recovering from having a newborn until, effectively, a week ago.

Nancy thought about going back to sleep, but she was pressed tight between the two people she loved most in the world, one of whom she’d barely seen at all for the past year. There’d be time enough to sleep for the rest of the summer. 

She managed to get turned around so she was facing Steve, and she looked at his sleeping face in the early morning light. He was just the way she remembered, with his dark eyelashes and his straight nose and the way only his mustache seemed to grow in overnight, the hair on his cheeks more sparse. His mouth was slack with sleep, his lips full and kissable. 

Nancy kissed him. She pulled on his lower lip gently, licking it and liking how slick his lips felt when she kissed him again. Steve stirred, smiling as he woke up. “Hey, babe.”

“Morning,” she said, catching the hand he put on her face. Nancy turned far enough to pull his index finger in her mouth, licking the salt from his skin and sucking gently.

“Fuck,” he groaned, pressing his cock against her thigh. “What are you up to?”

“I want you,” she said, licking his middle finger too, “to touch me. To get me off.”

Steve groaned again, pulling his fingers from her mouth and kissing her instead. Then he slipped his hand into her panties and rubbed his wet fingers gently over her clit. 

Nancy moaned softly into his mouth, encouraging him to keep going. Jonathan stirred behind her, making a small noise and breathing heavily. Steve licked into Nancy’s mouth, his kisses pulling at her lips and his fingers steadily winding her up.

Then Jonathan turned, pressing against Nancy’s back and kissing her shoulder. He ran his hand over her side and down, pushing her panties off. She almost told him to get his cock in her, before she realized again what a bad idea that would be. 

Luckily, Jonathan had a different idea. He kissed her neck and pressed two of his fingers into her. He moved them in rhythm with Steve’s fingers on her clit, and then she was coming and coming and trying not to scream as both of them kept touching her.

Eventually, Nancy couldn’t stand it anymore. She pushed at Steve’s hand, and he left off her clit, but he pressed his fingers up into her along with Jonathan’s as she pulsed and shuddered around them.

“Oh, god,” she whispered, holding onto Steve and kissing him again. 

“Mm,” he hummed against her lips, drawing out his fingers. “Mornin’.”

“Good morning,” she said, shivering when Jonathan pulled his fingers out too.

Making a small, needy noise, Jonathan reached over Nancy and pressed his fingers against Steve’s lips. Steve licked Jonathan’s sticky fingers and sucked them in, making Jonathan take a sharp breath.

Then Jonathan scrambled over Nancy, pressing Steve’s shoulders back against the bed. He sat on Steve’s chest, took his cock out through the fly in his boxers, and asked Steve, “Yes?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, propping himself up a little bit on his elbows and holding his mouth open for Jonathan to thrust into.

Nancy could tell Jonathan was really close already, so she reached down for Steve’s cock, stroking him steadily. When Jonathan took a sharp breath and came, Steve’s cock hardened further. Nancy stroked him faster, and then he was coming too, groaning low in his throat.

Jonathan bent sideways, dropping a kiss onto Nancy’s mouth before scooting back on Steve and just laying on top of him, right in the puddle on Steve’s belly. 

“Ah, fuck,” Steve sighed happily, tugging on Nancy until she laid down next to them, her head on Steve’s shoulder, Steve’s arm on her back, holding her close. “Good morning!”

Nancy giggled happily, already making a mental note to call the pharmacy and get a refill on her prescription as soon as they passed through Chicago. Being in bed with her guys was much more fun when she didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant. 

Again.

Nancy caught sight of the ring on her finger and realized she and Jonathan weren’t really married anymore. Not here in 1987, using their real names. Then again, she didn’t exactly want to take her ring off, either. It meant more to her than she realized it did.

Reaching out, she tickled Jonathan on the nose until he opened his eyes and smiled at her. “Hey.”

“What do you think we should do about our rings?” she asked him. “I mean, I can’t really wear mine around my family without drawing a ton of questions I can’t answer. But I don’t want to…” She looked at Jonathan and then Steve before saying, “I don’t want to just put it in a box and forget about it, like it didn’t happen.”

“I...don’t know,” Jonathan said, pushing himself up so he could look at Steve’s face. “Do they bother you?”

Steve sat up, keeping Jonathan in his lap. He took Jonathan’s left hand in his and looked at it for a moment. Then he took Nancy’s hand and looked at it too. “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, they look good on you guys. Seeing you wear them makes me happy. I just... kind of feel left out.”

Nancy thought about how her grandmother always used to wear her wedding ring on a chain around her neck after her husband died. In a way, Nancy and Jonathan Marek had ceased to exist. That was kind of like dying. She suggested to Jonathan, "We could put them on chains. Wear them around our necks until we're ready to put them back on for real."

"Hey, I call being the groom in the next wedding we have," Steve said, leaning back with a wide smile. "You guys can decide between the two of you who gets to be the bride."

Nancy laughed and Jonathan rolled his eyes. Then Jonathan picked up Nancy's left hand, kissing it just over her ring. "I like the chain idea," he said, leaning over and kissing her cheek too. "But I think we should get one for Steve, too." He looked over at Steve. "Like a–a promise he can have from us."

His voice just barely above a whisper, Steve asked, "What kind of promise?"

"A forever kind of promise," Nancy told him. "A promise that when we're really ready, we'll get married. Whatever that ends up looking like for the three of us."

Sniffling a little, Steve nodded. "Yeah," he said, pushing at his nose. "I'd like that, Nancy. Jonathan. I would."

Nancy smiled at him again and kissed him. "Alright, baby. We'll stop by a jewelry store on our way back to Chicago, okay?"

Steve nodded again, letting Jonathan kiss him. "Okay."

A loud knock on the door was followed by Mike yelling through the door, "Hey, dickheads! Stop doing it and get out here! We made coffee and waffles!"

"Fuck off, Michael! We’ll be out when we’re ready!" Nancy yelled back, but she smiled and told the others, "I really _missed_ him."

~*~

Jonathan felt Charlie’s agitation before he saw it. Nancy was on the phone with Murray and they were talking about Charlie, and she really didn’t need to be there for that. 

He tapped her arm and murmured, “Hey. Let’s get out of here for awhile.”

With a wide-eyed look of relief, Charlie nodded and followed Jonathan out of the house. “Where are we going?”

Jonathan shrugged. “Anywhere but in there. At least for a little bit. Take a break.” He walked down the road away from the cabin.

Charlie walked beside him, and after a minute, she pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one. 

When they were far enough away from the cabin that Jonathan couldn’t hear the minds inside without straining, he said, “I was going to teach you.”

“Teach me what?” she asked, taking a drag and holding it in. 

“About what we are. What we can do.” He turned onto a trail that led away from the road and through the forest. “I didn’t want you to grow up thinking you were broken. Like I did.”

“Yeah, well,” she said, blowing out smoke and putting the cigarette up to her lips again. “Best intentions and all that.”

Jonathan nodded. Spotting a fallen log just off the trail, he went over to it and sat down. He couldn’t quite look over at her when he admitted, “I could tell you were like me. Before you were born, I mean.”

Looking a little intrigued, she sat down next to him and asked, “How?”

Shrugging, he said, “You talked to me. Not in words or anything, but in feelings. You could tell when I was around, even when I didn’t speak.” He picked at a stone caught in the treads of his shoe. “I think that’s how you got so strong. Talking to me all the time like that while you were still growing. I mean _teleportation_? At eighteen? I ... that’s when my abilities really kicked in too, but still. I can’t do that shit. El can’t either, and she’s the strongest of all of us.”

“When did you find out?” Charlie asked him. “That you’re different?”

“I mean, I _knew_ I was different,” Jonathan insisted. “I just didn’t know _how_ different until I was eighteen. I just kinda thought I was weird and queer and a freak. My dad tried to get me to like cars and hunting and baseball, and all this macho stuff that I _hated_.”

“What _did_ you like?” Charlie asked him, genuinely curious.

“Music,” he told her with a little smile. “Art. Books. Photography.” He smirked. “My girlfriend’s boyfriend.”

She gave an amused chuckle, shaking her head and stubbing out her cigarette on the bottom of her shoe. “I’m like that, too,” she said, putting the cigarette butt back in the package.

“Like what?”

Charlie kept her eyes down as she said, “Queer. Bi or whatever.”

Jonathan felt a sharp spike of pride at the fact that she was telling him about herself. Opening up. She did still seem a little ashamed, so he asked, “You wanna know something that I noticed? Living in Chicago last year?”

“What?”

“A _lot_ of people are queer. They just don’t say it out loud, or they don’t notice, because everything is ‘nuclear family this’ and ‘nuclear family that’,” Jonathan said, shaking his head. “It’s bullshit.”

“Bullshit,” Charlie agreed, and there was just something about the way she said it that reminded Jonathan of Nancy. “So, how could you tell all this about people? You read their minds?”

“No, that’s more Jenny’s thing, sometimes El,” Jonathan told her. “The thing I’m best at is reading how people are feeling." He shrugged. "Attraction is a feeling, I guess. For the longest time I just thought I was good at facial expressions, you know? Body language. Turns out it’s more than that.”

“Wait,” Charlie said, leaning back and looking up at the sky. “Being able to tell emotions is a psychic thing?”

“Yeah. The scientists call me an empath.”

“My ex called me crazy.” Charlie sighed, and Jonathan could feel how much she was hurting.

He moved closer to her and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sorry. Like I said, my fault.”

Charlie scoffed at him and rolled her eyes, but she didn’t pull away from Jonathan’s hug.

A minute later, Jonathan asked Charlie, “How much did El teach you? Did she show you how to build a shield?”

“No. We mostly just focused on what I needed to do to help get you home.”

Jonathan nodded. “It’s a lot easier to learn in the bath, anyway.”

Charlie frowned and asked him, “In the bath? I heard El say that at one point too. What is it?”

“A sensory deprivation tub,” he told her. “Hop built one at the house in Springfield. Basically, the more senses you block out, the easier it is to focus on the extrasensory shit.”

Then he got curious. He always built his shield using the “Upside Down stuff” that clung to his mind after traveling there. Since he and Nancy had both been to the Upside Down, would Charlie have some too?

“What?” Charlie asked, and Jonathan had to smile. Yeah, she was an empath, too. For sure.

He turned on the log to face her, straddling it, and said, “Give me your hands.”

“Why?”

Jonathan raised his eyebrows and waited. 

“Fuckin’ Jedi mind tricks,” she muttered, but she turned and put her hands in Jonathan’s anyway. “Now what?”

“Close your eyes,” he said, dropping into the Inbetween. A second later he pulled her in with him. “You’ve been here before, right?”

Charlie looked around the dark space, kicking through the water at her feet. “Yeah. This place is creepy.” 

Jonathan brought Charlie closer to him, showing her the Upside Down stuff in his head. “Do you have anything like _this_?”

“I don’t know,” she said, turning around in the open space. “How am I supposed to find it?”

“Here,” Jonathan said, pushing at Charlie his memory of what the stuff looked and felt like.

“Oh,” she said, the blueish-blackish stuff appearing over her head. It wasn't as big or as intense as what Jonathan had, but it _was_ there. “What is it?”

“Poison,” Jonathan told her. “But just a small amount. I bet it’s the reason you and Will made a connection back in ‘83. It’s protective, or it can be. When we use it right.”

“Let me guess,” Charlie said, kicking at the water under her feet again. “We’re out here so you can teach me how.”

“Bingo,” Jonathan told her, thinking he was glad Charlie seemed to have gotten Nancy’s cleverness. God knew with this sort of life ahead of her, Charlie was going to need it.


	21. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan leave Oregon.

_ July 3, 1987 _

“Thank you for coming, Sheriff,” Nancy said, showing Sheriff Wyatt into Joe Coombs’ living room. “I think you already know Miles.”

Miles stood up and gave the Sheriff a wave. “Hello, sir.”

“Miles?” Sheriff Wyatt asked, taking a few steps closer to him. “But you look so different!”

Nancy caught Wyatt by the elbow and told him, “There are two versions of this story. There’s the one you’re going to put in your records and that I’m going to write in my article. And then, there’s the truth. Right now I’m going to tell you the truth. Please tell me you can handle it.”

Wyatt frowned at Nancy, but then he nodded. “Okay. Whatever it is.”

“An instability in space time has been transporting people to a pocket dimension overlaid on our world, but in the past.”

Nancy could see how little the sheriff understood. 

She went to Miles, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Miles left 1986 and landed in 1955. He looks different because he spent almost ten years there before we could get him out. Tony,” Nancy pointed to her friend, “spent about twelve years there. Alexis almost four.”

From the corner, Mr. Summers spoke up. “I spent more than thirty years there,” he said. 

“But…” Wyatt looked around. “You found four of the people I sent you to find. Where are the rest?”

“Most of them,” Nancy said, pulling one of her notebooks out of the pile, “lived and died under assumed names. A couple did things that nullified their existence in the first place. And the rest…” Nancy found herself looking over at Charlie in the corner. “The rest chose to stay behind in the past. They had people they wanted to stay behind for.”

Showing the Sheriff her list of names, Nancy pointed at one of them. “Dottie Savage lives in Oklahoma now with her son and grandchildren. When I called, she told me that the boundary of the pocket dimension dissolved in 1967, when there was no new traveler. All of the remaining time travelers left Cedarville and the town keeping them company dissolved away as well.”

Joe spoke up, saying, “Buck Harrell sent new post cards every month for awhile. Postcards from everywhere you could think of. One day they stopped coming.” He shrugged. “I think either life got the best of him, or he found a new place to settle and a new life to live.”

The sheriff pressed his lips together for a long moment, looking at Nancy’s list, then up at Miles again. Finally he asked, “What’s the not-true story?”

“There was a psychopathic cult, two or three members at most, hidden away in the mountains. They used traps in the woods to capture people, and kept them captive under harsh conditions. They were well hidden in the mountains. This group of survivors,” Nancy pointed to Tony, Alexis, and Miles, “managed to kill their captors and escape. The captors' bodies were scavenged by animals, leaving no remains. There is nothing to fear. The threat is over.”

“And where did this man come from?” The Sheriff asked, pointing to Mr. Summers. 

“Oh, here and there,” he said, giving Nancy a wink. “I knew Joe when he was just a boy. Thought I’d come back and catch up with him.”

Scratching his head again, the Sheriff asked, “How many people _knew_ about this?”

“Many over the years,” Nancy told him. “Just about everyone who lived in Cedarville during the sixties knew.” She picked another notebook from the stack, “I interviewed all of them.”

“In a month?” Sheriff Wyatt asked, taking the notebook from Nancy and paging through it. “That was over twenty years ago. Wouldn’t some of them be dead by now?”

Nancy smiled at him. “I had a little extra time on my side.”

~*~

_ July 4, 1987 _

Steve laid out on the blanket, which was spread out over the grass in a field nearby Logan. Nancy lay on his left shoulder and Jonathan on his right. “The sun’s almost down,” he noticed. “Probably means the fireworks will start soon.”

“I’m glad we’re this far out of town,” Nancy said. “I’m sure it’ll be better than last summer, but fireworks still…” She shivered. 

Steve pulled her closer, kissing her forehead. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

Jonathan hummed, shifting and kissing the side of Steve’s neck. His fingers fidgeted with the ring laying on Steve’s chest, dragging it back and forth along the chain, reminding Steve that it was there. The ring was simple, inexpensive, gold plated, and not sized correctly yet. Still, Steve liked knowing it was there. It made him feel like, at any moment, whenever they were ready, they could just decide to get married and go do it.

It made him feel like Nancy and Jonathan hadn’t forgotten about him at all. He supposed it helped to have at least some contact while they were gone. It probably felt more like a long distance relationship than like a loss or a break up or whatever.

That thought reminded Steve of the night after Jonathan disappeared. Of the way he’d let himself fall apart and drink and mope. He thought of the way Charlie had been there for him, trying to cheer him up in her horribly ineffective sort of way. “Hey, did I tell you guys that Charlie kissed me?”

“No,” said Jonathan at the same time Nancy cried, “What?”

“I think she was trying to make me feel better or something,” Steve said with a chuckle. “She didn’t know I was with you guys. I mean, I told her right away, obviously.” Steve winced, “And now I know why she reminded me so much of Mom and Will. Why I was so weirded out by her kissing me. Eugh.”

“I’m glad she’s thinking about coming to visit this fall,” Nancy said, putting her hand over Jonathan’s on Steve’s chest. “If we take her to Hawkins, we’ll probably have to say she’s a Byers cousin or something.”

Steve gave a small snort of a laugh. “Don’t want to explain to your family why your daughter is older than you?”

“Noooo,” Nancy insisted. “Actually, I’ll be fine if my parents never find out we accidentally had a kid.”

“What about when we, _eventually_ ,” Jonathan asked, “decide to have one on purpose?”

“We’ll tell them about that one, sure,” Nancy replied. 

Steve noticed the way Nancy didn’t correct Jonathan and say “if” instead of “when.” He didn’t point it out, because he didn’t want her to take it back. Not right now. He wanted to hold onto that “when” for as long as he could manage it.

The first firework cracked in the distance, just over the tree line at the edge of the field. There was a nice little delay between the flash of the next firework and the sound it made. It was nothing like the up-close, in-your-face experience of using fireworks as live ordinance against a melted-people flesh monster. 

“Pretty,” Steve said, holding Jonathan and Nancy close.

“Happy Fourth, you guys,” Jonathan said, shifting further onto his back, better to watch the show.

“Happy Fourth,” Nancy murmured back.

Steve turned and looked at Nancy’s profile, lit up occasionally by the flash of a firework. He saw a lot of Charlie in the shape of her nose and the way she held her jaw. It made Steve wonder what it would look like if he and Nancy had a kid. He told himself not to be too eager to find out. 

They still had a long way to go to settled enough for that to happen. But just the fact that it was a very real possibility made something warm and so, so _loving_ unfurl in his chest.

Turning his gaze back toward the fireworks, Steve watched the show with his two favorite people in the entire world. It was enough. It was _more_ than enough.

At least for now.

~*~

_ July 11, 1987 _

_ Killer Cult Exposed in Oregon State _

_ By Murray Bauman and Nancy Wheeler  _

“The headline is a little much,” Jonathan said, looking at the paper from across the booth. “But this one’s actually got your name on it.”

“I know!” Nancy grinned, running her fingers over the print of the copy of USA Today she’d managed to buy from the corner store just before coming into The Blue Spoon for breakfast. “It’s running front page in the Oregonian today. When we head through Portland this afternoon, I want to try to get a couple copies.”

“I got us a reservation for tonight,” Steve said, nonchalantly sipping his coffee-laced creamer. 

This was the first Nancy was hearing of it, so she asked him, “What? What sort of reservation?”

He shrugged and said, “Hotel reservation. It’s this mountain lodge not too far off the interstate. Mary Ann said it was nice. Romantic. You know, so we can celebrate your big day.”

Grinning, Nancy cried, “Steve!” She pulled him close enough to hug his arm and kiss his cheek. “That was so sweet of you!”

Pressing his forehead against hers, he said, “You deserve it, babe.”

Nancy had to remind herself not to climb into his lap and kiss him silly in public.

Luckily, their dining companion finally showed up, slipping into the booth seat next to Jonathan. “Hey,” Charlie said, letting Jonathan give her a hug. “I can’t believe I agreed to meet you guys this early on a Saturday.”

“I’m glad you came,” Nancy insisted, folding up the newspaper and setting it aside. “It wouldn’t have felt right leaving Logan without seeing you one last time.”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “You guys have seen me practically every day for the past two weeks.”

“We’ve got twenty-two years to catch up on,” Jonathan insisted, knocking his shoulder into hers before passing her the mug of coffee they’d ordered for her. 

Charlie smiled and took the coffee. While she sipped it, a middle-aged woman came up to the table with a bright smile. 

“Charlie! It’s so good to see you looking so happy!” She gestured to Jonathan and asked, “Is this the man who finally got our resident grump back into dating?”

“No!” insisted everyone at the table, making the woman put her hand up to her chest in surprise. 

“Georgia,” Charlie said, “this is my _cousin_ Jonathan. He’s visiting from Chicago with his friends.” She nodded over at Nancy and Steve.

“Oh!” She said with an embarrassed smile. “Now that you mention it, I _do_ see the family resemblance. Are you three having a nice visit?”

“Pretty nice,” Steve told her, giving her the smile that tended to make even older ladies swoon a bit. “Unfortunately, we’re on our way out today.”

“Oh, that’s too bad!” Georgia gave Steve’s shoulder a little touch, and Nancy had to remind herself not to get overly possessive. “Well, I hope you come back again sometime soon. Charlie certainly looks like she appreciates the company.”

“Thanks, Georgia,” Charlie said, with a grimacing smile that reminded Nancy so much of Joyce that she had to hide her giggle in Steve’s shoulder. “See you later.”

After Georgia left, Steve leaned across the table toward Charlie and told her, “This? This sort of shit never happens in Chicago.”

She shook her head and smiled, picking up her menu and looking at it. “Everyone else make it back to Illinois okay?”

“Yeah, Mom called last night,” Jonathan told her. “Apparently they had a hell of a time keeping El and Mike apart these past few days.”

Steve shook his head. “Road trips, man. They get under your skin.”

Nancy cleared her throat and admitted, “I may have given Mike some of those condoms we bought. Just in case.”

Ignoring the way Charlie had choked on her coffee and Jonathan blushed and looked at the menu very intently, Steve agreed, “Probably a good call. I mean, that summer you guys were sixteen…”

Nancy couldn’t help but laugh, remembering just how often they’d taken advantage of Jonathan’s or Steve’s empty houses. “Yes, exactly,” she said, opening her own menu. “And El’s _way_ stronger than Jonathan. If she and my brother had a kid…”

“End of the world?” Charlie asked with a sly smile. 

Nancy smiled back at her and shrugged. “Maybe.”

Jonathan sighed guiltily, so Nancy reached under the table with her foot, hooking his ankle. When she smiled at him, trying to make him understand she was _mostly_ kidding, he smiled back. 

“This family is so weird,” Charlie muttered, taking another sip of her coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> And that's it! If you feel like leaving me a comment about what you thought of this work, I would appreciate it!
> 
> Part 13, "Devotion" is almost finished. I'm polishing up a few more scenes and working on a header image. I'm thinking I'll start posting it in about a week, if I can hold off that long! If you want to subscribe and get all the updates, I would recommend subscribing to the [Mr. Sandman](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1527764) series so you don't miss any updates when new installments of the series get posted.
> 
> You can find me on [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/pterawaters) or [tumblr](https://pterawaters.tumblr.com/). If you want to recommend this work, please consider reblogging [this tumblr post](https://pterawaters.tumblr.com/post/190557751684/read-it-on-ao3-now-complete-after-her-first). Thank you!


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